Latest / Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive / January 8, 2023 | 1 Corinthians - Love Never Fails

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January 8, 2023 | 1 Corinthians - Love Never Fails · Topeka Bible Church Audio Archive

0:00
SPEAKER_00: Good to see everybody.
0:01
SPEAKER_00: I have two confessions I need to make to you this morning.
0:04
SPEAKER_00: The first is that I didn't get the best best night's sleep.
0:08
SPEAKER_00: And so if I ramble incoherently, you know why.
0:14
SPEAKER_00: Little baby.
0:15
SPEAKER_00: But uh the second one is that um as we're going through our series here in 1 Corinthians, um, we're gonna be talking about chapter 13 today, which is popularly known as the love chapter.
0:28
SPEAKER_00: And uh my confession to you is that when I was getting ready for the series on 1 Corinthians, this is the message that I was dreading the most.
0:38
SPEAKER_00: And the reason why is because um, well, for a couple reasons.
0:43
SPEAKER_00: One is arrogantly, I thought I knew what this chapter was about.
0:49
SPEAKER_00: Uh when I was going through 1 Corinthians, I literally skipped over chapter 13 because I said I will just have to talk about love for 40 minutes.
0:57
SPEAKER_00: And there's that second part there where I, in all honesty, I say that I I struggle with this command to love and to do it well.
1:06
SPEAKER_00: And so my the hard part was I didn't know how I was going to talk about this.
1:12
SPEAKER_00: So, having said that, this past week, have the privilege of digging into this, and I can happily say that I very much know how I'm going to talk for 40 minutes about the topic of love because it's far deeper than I understood it to be.
1:26
SPEAKER_00: And I was humbled by that.
1:28
SPEAKER_00: Um, but also I think that there's some great challenges here in the passage that is used at every single wedding, right?
1:36
SPEAKER_00: So uh we're gonna dig into 1 Corinthians chapter 13.
1:39
SPEAKER_00: But in order to, in order to hit it right, uh we actually are gonna look at the last verse of chapter 12.
1:46
SPEAKER_00: So if you want to turn there, chapter 12, verse 31, Paul says, Now eagerly desire the greater gifts.
1:54
SPEAKER_00: Moreover, I will show you a better way, right?
1:57
SPEAKER_00: So we have to remember last week where we talked about chapter 12 and all of the different spiritual gifts that Paul sort of brought to muster.
2:05
SPEAKER_00: And remember the different analogies, right?
2:07
SPEAKER_00: We are a body with many parts, we are one, yet we are different, uh, that we should really lift up some of the weaker members, but really just the less recognized ones, and the ones who are sort of like the eyeball, how grotesque it would be if we were all one eyeball, right?
2:23
SPEAKER_00: So Paul was talking about those spiritual gifts, but remember the reason, or part of the reason, is because the Corinthians had overemphasized and really held up this idea, this competition between themselves over who was greatest in the kingdom because of these things.
2:41
SPEAKER_00: Their sort of um grand idea was if you could speak in tongues, right, you were the greatest one.
2:48
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul is sort of talking with them about that, and basically they asked him this question.
2:52
SPEAKER_00: They said, Hey, Paul, can you settle this score for us?
2:55
SPEAKER_00: We want to know which one of us is greater.
2:57
SPEAKER_00: Kind of sounds like the disciples when they were talking with Jesus, and they were like, Hey, Jesus, so when all of this shakes out, like, which one of us is gonna be sitting next to you, right?
3:06
SPEAKER_00: So now the Corinthians kind of have this pride, and and some of them are lifting up these different spiritual gifts, and they've asked Paul, settle the score for us.
3:14
SPEAKER_00: And so it sounds here, like in the very last verse, he's gonna do that.
3:18
SPEAKER_00: He says, Let me tell you about these greater gifts.
3:21
SPEAKER_00: And they're like, oh yeah.
3:22
SPEAKER_00: And he says, and I'm gonna tell you a better way.
3:25
SPEAKER_00: And so, of course, these people who are like, I want to be the greatest in God's kingdom, they want to know the better way.
3:31
SPEAKER_00: But Paul, I feel like it would be disingenuous to say it's a bait and switch, but it is certainly not forecasted well enough that he is now going to take an entire chapter, a detour, if you will, to talk about the thing which they lack the most, which is actually love.
3:48
SPEAKER_00: The reason I bring all of this up is because I want you to see, though, that chapter 13 is not some just like random digression where Paul waxes philosophically about love and just how wonderful it is.
4:04
SPEAKER_00: There's a narrative, there's an argument being made, right?
4:07
SPEAKER_00: He says in 12, you've got all of these gifts, you are amazing, you are talented, you are praised.
4:13
SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna show you a better way to do it, and they're thinking, as he's going to do in chapter 14, that he's gonna tell them which one is best.
4:20
SPEAKER_00: Answer the question finally.
4:22
SPEAKER_00: But instead, his better way ends up being that they are people who are defined by love and reflect love, and they use all of their giftings through a matter of love, and then after all of that is done, then he gets to 14.
4:38
SPEAKER_00: So I want you to see that there's they're tied together here, right?
4:41
SPEAKER_00: There's a reason that he brings this up.
4:43
SPEAKER_00: So if the that's the last chapter in chapter 12.
4:47
SPEAKER_00: Now, as we turn our attention to chapter 13, you need to keep all these things in mind.
4:51
SPEAKER_00: In particular, that he's going to show them a better way.
4:56
SPEAKER_00: If I speak in human or angelic tongues, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or clanging symbol.
5:02
SPEAKER_00: If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.
5:12
SPEAKER_00: And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
5:20
SPEAKER_00: So, first of all, what you might see here is that Paul is sort of listing out, right, he's got prophecy, he's got speaking in tongues, knowledge, an amazing faith, even martyrdom, all of these things that the Corinthians would be like salivating over because they're like, yes, those are great people, those are the people we want to be.
5:37
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, but that being said, if they do not have love, he has three things, right?
5:47
SPEAKER_00: The first one's a little hidden, but when he says, I'm a noisy gonger clinging symbol, he's like, I do nothing of value.
5:57
SPEAKER_00: I am nothing of value, and I gain nothing of value.
6:02
SPEAKER_00: Really, really dramatic statement that he's making here to a group of people who are uniquely gifted in the way that he talks about.
6:09
SPEAKER_00: You have to go back to chapter one to get a lot of that, but he just is talking about them all over the place.
6:13
SPEAKER_00: Man, my goodness, talk about the most skilled, like the varsity level talent that was possessed in Corinthians.
6:20
SPEAKER_00: And Paul is giving them this spiritual equation where he's like, you have all of that in spades, but if you lack love, it equals nothing.
6:32
SPEAKER_00: And that, we kind of have to rest in that for a second.
6:36
SPEAKER_00: How dramatic of a statement that is, right?
6:39
SPEAKER_00: Because when Paul does that, he's also including himself in the statement, right?
6:44
SPEAKER_00: I am, he uses I a bunch, but in all of these, the nothings, he includes himself.
6:49
SPEAKER_00: And the reason why is because Paul is one of the most gifted Christians to ever live.
6:54
SPEAKER_00: He can speak in tongues, as he'll say later.
6:57
SPEAKER_00: He can prophesy, he can do miracles, he is the greatest evangelist that the world has ever seen.
7:03
SPEAKER_00: And yet Paul himself is saying, right, that is, or probably at least knowing or recognizing that is why he is, part of the reason why he is so beloved in this community is because of how strong and powerful and wonderful he is in their eyes.
7:17
SPEAKER_00: And he's saying, But if I don't have love, he's including himself.
7:20
SPEAKER_00: If I don't have love, do nothing of value, am nothing of value, gain nothing of value.
7:25
SPEAKER_00: Those three things which they would be holding on to.
7:30
SPEAKER_00: So how is this working out, right?
7:33
SPEAKER_00: How is it true that they are nothing?
7:38
SPEAKER_00: Well, the reason why is because God is not in need of your skill.
7:46
SPEAKER_00: He does not need, per se, somebody with an amazing ability to teach or provide mercy or share the gospel.
7:54
SPEAKER_00: He's got that covered.
7:56
SPEAKER_00: He's pretty talented.
7:57
SPEAKER_00: What he does desire deeply is people who are filled with love.
8:01
SPEAKER_00: And what God also knows, as we can understand, is that people who exercise their gifts in Christ and say that they are walking with the banner of Christ, yet are doing it with like empty, right?
8:16
SPEAKER_00: They're with four closed mansions, beautiful on the outside, empty on the inside, as they are carrying these things out, it brings nothing of eternal value, really.
8:27
SPEAKER_00: Because you might say, well, that's a really extreme statement.
8:30
SPEAKER_00: Couldn't somebody teach without passion?
8:32
SPEAKER_00: Well, they might gain something, but they're not gaining anything in the kingdom, right?
8:37
SPEAKER_00: Their reward connects with the desires of their heart.
8:41
SPEAKER_00: We can think of some examples, right?
8:43
SPEAKER_00: In Matthew 6, the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus says, those who give loudly and pray on the street corners, they receive praise from people for being so pious and wonderful.
8:56
SPEAKER_00: And he says, but they shouldn't expect that they're going to receive anything from God.
9:00
SPEAKER_00: He said, they've received their reward in full.
9:02
SPEAKER_00: They didn't really want praise from God anyway.
9:05
SPEAKER_00: They just wanted to receive praise from people that they were praising God.
9:10
SPEAKER_00: Or you can go another example, right?
9:13
SPEAKER_00: You've got Mark 10, where you have the man, uh the rich young ruler, right, who goes to Jesus and says, How must I inherit the kingdom of God?
9:23
SPEAKER_00: And Jesus, knowing his heart, knowing how idolatrous he was towards his possession, says, Sell everything you have.
9:30
SPEAKER_00: And then maybe, you know, you will inherit the kingdom.
9:33
SPEAKER_00: And the man walks away dejected because he was never going to do that anyway.
9:37
SPEAKER_00: But let's say that the man sold everything.
9:40
SPEAKER_00: But he did it because his only desire was to buy heaven rather than benefit those who are going to receive his vast amount of wealth.
9:51
SPEAKER_00: That man gains nothing.
9:53
SPEAKER_00: You look at the man, even I think the most dramatic example clearly is the one Paul finishes with.
9:59
SPEAKER_00: I give away all my possessions.
10:00
SPEAKER_00: If I give over my body, if I martyr myself in order to boast, if I do even the most dramatic thing in the kingdom, give my life for the gospel, yet I do it because I was concerned about what other people would think of me.
10:18
SPEAKER_00: Man, Paul says, I gain nothing.
10:22
SPEAKER_00: So the question then that should be coming to our minds after looking at all of this and seeing how dramatic of a statement it is, is we say, man, have I underestimated what it means to love in God's kingdom?
10:36
SPEAKER_00: Have I undervalued the role of love in every single thing that I'm doing?
10:41
SPEAKER_00: Or maybe you're there, you were there a long time ago.
10:44
SPEAKER_00: That is what I was thinking.
10:47
SPEAKER_00: Man, I had probably lifted up some of these things that they're doing there.
10:51
SPEAKER_00: Who does not want faith that can move mountains?
10:54
SPEAKER_00: Yet a faith that can move mountains without love, to say it does nothing, my goodness.
10:59
SPEAKER_00: So because we are experiencing this and asking this question, it makes us dive deeper, right?
11:06
SPEAKER_00: As Paul says, all of these things are yet a better way.
11:10
SPEAKER_00: So, Paul, how?
11:12
SPEAKER_00: How is this the better way?
11:14
SPEAKER_00: How is love, and moreover, how do we love?
11:17
SPEAKER_00: How can we get to the granular, the specific ways of loving?
11:23
SPEAKER_00: That is what leads us to now the most overused passage in the Bible on love ever.
11:30
SPEAKER_00: Love is patient, love is kind, does not envy, is not boastful, it is not arrogant, it is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs.
11:44
SPEAKER_00: Love finds no joy in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth.
11:47
SPEAKER_00: It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
11:52
SPEAKER_00: This is Paul now getting into the specifics, right?
11:55
SPEAKER_00: With context in mind.
11:57
SPEAKER_00: What is he going towards?
11:58
SPEAKER_00: Showing them the better way.
12:00
SPEAKER_00: And this is the better way.
12:01
SPEAKER_00: But what you'll notice about love is of the 15 verbs that are used in this section, not a one of them is just we think about love.
12:12
SPEAKER_00: We conceptualize, we talk about love a lot.
12:15
SPEAKER_00: Every single one of these is an action.
12:18
SPEAKER_00: Love is action.
12:20
SPEAKER_00: And so as Paul is describing the things that must be done with love, he then tells us, well, love is the thing that you have probably overlooked as perhaps being too simple or something that is not worth your time.
12:33
SPEAKER_00: But love is action, right?
12:36
SPEAKER_00: And this action has a continual refrain to it, right?
12:40
SPEAKER_00: Love is patient.
12:41
SPEAKER_00: When we are patient with people, therefore we love them.
12:45
SPEAKER_00: When we are kind to them, we love them.
12:47
SPEAKER_00: When we are not envious or jealous of their accomplishments, we love them.
12:51
SPEAKER_00: When we don't boast or act prideful in their presence, we love them, so on and so forth.
12:56
SPEAKER_00: All of these things he is listing out, you might not have guessed that a synonym for patience would be love, yet Paul says in all of these actions, love is felt.
13:09
SPEAKER_00: We might talk a lot about, philosophize a lot about what it means to love people.
13:14
SPEAKER_00: We might say that we love people, but when the rubber hits the road, what it means to love people is action.
13:22
SPEAKER_00: So all of these things come together here.
13:25
SPEAKER_00: And the other thing that we recognize, which goes in the face a little bit of how this verses, these verses are normally used, right?
13:32
SPEAKER_00: Um I have officiated weddings where I've used this passage.
13:36
SPEAKER_00: My own wedding had this passage, right?
13:39
SPEAKER_00: It's a beautiful passage to discuss love.
13:41
SPEAKER_00: And it can be used in sort of this general sense, because love is, at the least, all of these things.
13:47
SPEAKER_00: It is many more.
13:49
SPEAKER_00: But what we have to see, as you're probably not surprised that I'm going to tell you, is that in context, it is for the Corinthians.
13:56
SPEAKER_00: Just as how chapter 12, when Paul was listing out all of those different spiritual gifts, right?
14:01
SPEAKER_00: And he goes on this list, but then I'm saying, okay, well, that's 1 Corinthians 12, here's Romans 12, here's Ephesians, here's 1 Peter.
14:08
SPEAKER_00: It's not an exhaustive list, but it was indicative, it was reflective of the Corinthian church.
14:14
SPEAKER_00: They exhibited all of those spiritual gifts that were in chapter 12.
14:19
SPEAKER_00: Okay, well now here we can say that the Corinthians fail to exhibit all of these things that Paul is describing in chapter 13.
14:30
SPEAKER_00: These are the ways that they have failed to love people.
14:33
SPEAKER_00: You can love people in other ways besides this, but at the base level, it requires all these things to love people, and this is how they have failed.
14:44
SPEAKER_00: And so as we look at these, we see that the Corinthians not only have failed, which I'll get to again in a moment, but that there is an enduring quality to love.
14:54
SPEAKER_00: That it is not just sort of this, you know, one-time act of sacrifice or you know service.
15:03
SPEAKER_00: Right?
15:03
SPEAKER_00: But in verse seven, we get to this kind of odd language about bearing all and believing all.
15:10
SPEAKER_00: So the word all that's used there, it's better translated as always.
15:15
SPEAKER_00: It just doesn't really make sense in the way that we would sort of construct that phrase.
15:20
SPEAKER_00: So I think that you get a better sense of what chapter seven is really talking about if we can use like a double negative here.
15:27
SPEAKER_00: We might say, love um never does not support people.
15:36
SPEAKER_00: Love never does not act with patience.
15:40
SPEAKER_00: Love never does not treat other people with hope.
15:43
SPEAKER_00: Love never does not all of these different things where instead of saying, hey, we do them, we're patient with somebody, we can look at verse 7 and use sort of this language and understand that Paul is saying, love is always, continually and forever these things in perpetuity and for all time.
16:03
SPEAKER_00: Love is patient and kind and all the other things that he lists out.
16:08
SPEAKER_00: Love is eternal, something which will become very relevant later.
16:13
SPEAKER_00: But we take the Corinthians and see how they have failed, and we see the example here that is being set, and perhaps the Sunday schooler in us draws forth this conclusion which says the only one who has ever lived out all of these things is Jesus Christ.
16:31
SPEAKER_00: So the Corinthians did not do a good job.
16:34
SPEAKER_00: Zeros across the board, okay?
16:37
SPEAKER_00: They need to retake the test next Tuesday.
16:40
SPEAKER_00: But Jesus has fulfilled all of these things.
16:44
SPEAKER_00: He is love personified.
16:46
SPEAKER_00: And his ministry, his earthly ministry, well, and his heavenly, is defined by love.
16:52
SPEAKER_00: And because we're saying that love is action, we also say that the way that Jesus showed that love wasn't just by telling somebody that he loved them, though he did that as well, but by showing them and making them feel that love.
17:06
SPEAKER_00: And when you read the Gospels, you can't avoid something like that where you say, Man, Jesus was patient with those who abused him.
17:16
SPEAKER_00: He was kind to those who did not deserve kindness.
17:22
SPEAKER_00: He was humble, he was gentle, and all these other things.
17:26
SPEAKER_00: Many of them were exemplified on the cross.
17:30
SPEAKER_00: Jesus is love personified.
17:32
SPEAKER_00: And so we think about all of these things, and we can identify more with the Corinthians, right?
17:39
SPEAKER_00: We can see all the ways that our love has fallen short of this amazingly high standard, but it draws us into Jesus.
17:48
SPEAKER_00: It says, Well, at least now I know what I'm heading towards.
17:52
SPEAKER_00: Right?
17:52
SPEAKER_00: What is love?
17:53
SPEAKER_00: What is this sort of, you know, um statement, this symbolic thing, this Valentine's card sort of concept.
18:03
SPEAKER_00: No, love and what we shoot for is the way that Jesus treated other people and they felt loved by him.
18:10
SPEAKER_00: And so that gives us a clear direction here.
18:13
SPEAKER_00: But yet the one thing we haven't perhaps fully covered is when Paul says, I have for you a better way, it's not just because love is fantastic.
18:24
SPEAKER_00: But there is a specific now, and this is why knowing that it's connected to 12, chapter 12 is important, because now Paul is going to make a comparison between the two, spiritual gifts and love, that is going to show why love should be valued above all these other things, right?
18:41
SPEAKER_00: So, as we go to verse 8, Paul says, Love never ends.
18:46
SPEAKER_00: That's going to be significant.
18:47
SPEAKER_00: But as for prophecies, they will come to an end.
18:49
SPEAKER_00: As for tongues, they will cease.
18:51
SPEAKER_00: As for knowledge, it will come to an end.
18:53
SPEAKER_00: For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end.
18:59
SPEAKER_00: When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.
19:03
SPEAKER_00: When I became a man, I put aside childish things.
19:06
SPEAKER_00: For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.
19:09
SPEAKER_00: Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known.
19:14
SPEAKER_00: Now these three remain faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.
19:20
SPEAKER_00: So Paul here is now bringing to a close his argument on love.
19:27
SPEAKER_00: And the reason why love, to summarize, is the better way compared to those who are so skilled and trying to use those skills is specifically because it never ends.
19:40
SPEAKER_00: And that brings up the question, so then spiritual gifts will end?
19:43
SPEAKER_00: And the answer is, yes, they do.
19:46
SPEAKER_00: Paul is going to explain that comment, right?
19:48
SPEAKER_00: And he lists out, you I mean, you know, this is again, this is why we know he's talking to an audience because the things he lists are all the things they value.
19:56
SPEAKER_00: He's like, I know you love prophecy, but as for prophecies, they will come to an end.
20:01
SPEAKER_00: I know you love speaking in tongues.
20:03
SPEAKER_00: As for tongues, they will cease.
20:04
SPEAKER_00: So on and so forth.
20:06
SPEAKER_00: For the things that they have lifted up at the top of the mountain, he says, there's a future where they won't be here.
20:12
SPEAKER_00: And then he gives this somewhat confusing language.
20:15
SPEAKER_00: We know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end.
20:21
SPEAKER_00: What is the perfect?
20:23
SPEAKER_00: Lots of debate.
20:25
SPEAKER_00: Here's what it is The perfect is when Jesus Christ returns.
20:28
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
20:29
SPEAKER_00: I talked about this in the podcast last week, but um, because it had to do somewhat with chapter 12 and the way that we express certain spiritual gifts.
20:37
SPEAKER_00: But the perfect being the return of Christ is the only solution that satisfies the question which is present, and that is when will spiritual gifts, which are used to build up the body of Christ, the church, when will that skill and ability no longer be needed?
20:55
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus is here.
20:56
SPEAKER_00: Right?
20:57
SPEAKER_00: There are other suggestions that people have made, but they don't satisfy that similar question, right?
21:03
SPEAKER_00: When will we not need skills given by God, grace gifts to build up the church as a body with unity?
21:10
SPEAKER_00: When was that not needed?
21:12
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus is present.
21:13
SPEAKER_00: You don't need me to terribly explain 1 Corinthians when Jesus returns, because you can ask him, okay?
21:20
SPEAKER_00: And that's far preferable for every single person here.
21:22
SPEAKER_00: I would rather ask him than tell you.
21:26
SPEAKER_00: When Jesus is here, these things are not needed.
21:30
SPEAKER_00: We don't need prophecy.
21:31
SPEAKER_00: We don't need uh evangelism when Jesus is here, per se.
21:35
SPEAKER_00: I'm making generalized statements, but we don't need the spiritual gifts that we are specifically gifted with in this current time.
21:45
SPEAKER_00: What will not end though, what will not cease, is love.
21:50
SPEAKER_00: Spiritual gifts, what they value so much, coming to an end.
21:53
SPEAKER_00: There's a future, we're hurtling towards it very fast, where Jesus is going to return, and we won't need spiritual.
22:00
SPEAKER_00: Gifts, but what will remain is love, because it never ends.
22:04
SPEAKER_00: This is why it's a better way.
22:06
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul gives this statement, though, about our current relationship with the kingdom, if you will.
22:14
SPEAKER_00: He says, For we know in part and we prophesy in part, right?
22:19
SPEAKER_00: So we know some of what is ultimately to be known.
22:23
SPEAKER_00: This goes back in 1 Corinthians to when he was talking about knowledge and how God, there's this difference between human knowledge and godly knowledge and how he reveals it to us specifically by the Spirit and through Jesus Christ, right?
22:36
SPEAKER_00: So we know a glimmer of what heaven is, right?
22:40
SPEAKER_00: We prophesy in part.
22:41
SPEAKER_00: I tell you some things, I mean, I try and tell you, everything I try and tell you is truthful, but some of it isn't, even to the best of my ability.
22:50
SPEAKER_00: I don't have perfect interpretations of the Bible, right?
22:53
SPEAKER_00: The commentaries that I read aren't perfect explanations of the text.
22:57
SPEAKER_00: When we get to heaven, I can ask the source.
23:01
SPEAKER_00: So there's this nature where we are basically doing our best with what we have now, but when the perfect comes, that partial situation will come to an end.
23:10
SPEAKER_00: It will be full.
23:11
SPEAKER_00: And then Paul sort of has this inclusion that sounds kind of offensive.
23:15
SPEAKER_00: I'll talk about it in a second, about being a child and a man.
23:18
SPEAKER_00: But then he goes to talking about this idea of a mirror and being face to face.
23:24
SPEAKER_00: The fact that he includes the perfect to being face to face is part of the reason that I think this is about seeing Jesus in the future and being with God's presence.
23:34
SPEAKER_00: But what kind of statement is it that now we see in a mirror dimly?
23:38
SPEAKER_00: Right?
23:39
SPEAKER_00: That's kind of odd.
23:40
SPEAKER_00: Well, this word dimly in the Greek is where we get our English word for enigma, okay?
23:46
SPEAKER_00: Which means like riddle or puzzle or something like that.
23:50
SPEAKER_00: And so that in and of itself can be kind of confusing if Paul had not already explained to the church how God sort of works in this divine mystery that he was pleased to reveal partly through Jesus Christ, now through the Holy Spirit, that we might understand it.
24:08
SPEAKER_00: But there were folks in the Old Testament who were told about a coming Messiah who had no idea and did not guess what Jesus was fully going to be.
24:16
SPEAKER_00: So there's this mystery of the kingdom that was partly revealed by Christ and will ultimately be revealed in the future.
24:22
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, right now it's like looking in a mirror dimly.
24:25
SPEAKER_00: We get this idea in the book of Numbers, okay?
24:29
SPEAKER_00: Uh this same word in the Septuagint, which is the Greek translation of the Old Testament.
24:34
SPEAKER_00: You don't need to know that.
24:35
SPEAKER_00: But in Numbers 12, verses 6 through 8, this is where God is upset at Aaron and Miriam for rebelling against Moses.
24:43
SPEAKER_00: And he says to them, Listen to what I say, if there is a prophet among you from the Lord, I make myself known to him in a vision.
24:49
SPEAKER_00: I speak with him in a dream, not so with my servant Moses.
24:53
SPEAKER_00: He is faithful in all my household.
24:55
SPEAKER_00: I speak with him directly, openly, and not in riddles.
24:58
SPEAKER_00: Same word that we're dealing with in chapter 13.
25:01
SPEAKER_00: He sees the form of the Lord.
25:03
SPEAKER_00: Right?
25:04
SPEAKER_00: So, besides being somewhat jealous of Moses that he gets to encounter these things, we recognize that there is a way that God speaks with people in partial stances that is different than his full explanation, which in this case he gave to the one who is leading them through the desert.
25:20
SPEAKER_00: By the way, bit of a preview to the topic that we're going to be getting into and later in spring, going through the book of Numbers.
25:28
SPEAKER_00: But anyhow, so Paul, right, he says, right now we see in a mirror dimly.
25:32
SPEAKER_00: Think of it this way: if you were talking to, you had a family member standing right next to you, and there was a barrier between you, and yet there was a mirror in front of you.
25:41
SPEAKER_00: You can see that family member, you can talk with them, but their features are going to be mirrored, right?
25:48
SPEAKER_00: They're going to be reflected differently than what it would look like if you were staring at them straight on.
25:53
SPEAKER_00: And their features are two-dimensional.
25:55
SPEAKER_00: They're not fully formed, they're not 3D.
25:57
SPEAKER_00: So it's a reality.
25:59
SPEAKER_00: It's not like it's fake, but it's a reflection of reality.
26:03
SPEAKER_00: That's what we live in now.
26:05
SPEAKER_00: So all these things come together, right?
26:07
SPEAKER_00: And Paul says, we're in the partial, and there's certain activities we do in the partial, right?
26:13
SPEAKER_00: In the time before the kingdom comes, but then there's the time when the kingdom comes.
26:18
SPEAKER_00: And this is where he gets into his uh sort of reference about being a child.
26:24
SPEAKER_00: And we're like, is he just calling the Corinthians children?
26:27
SPEAKER_00: Is he like upset with them?
26:29
SPEAKER_00: Because he has called them children previously.
26:31
SPEAKER_00: He said they weren't ready for more mature things.
26:34
SPEAKER_00: But in this case, he's not being offensive.
26:36
SPEAKER_00: He's simply pointing out a fact, right?
26:39
SPEAKER_00: So this is this is Daniel, this is our four-month-old.
26:43
SPEAKER_00: And thank you.
26:45
SPEAKER_00: So a couple uh days ago, he figured out that he could chew on his toes, right?
26:51
SPEAKER_00: Um, he really enjoys doing it.
26:53
SPEAKER_00: So there's nothing wrong with him chewing on his toes, right?
26:57
SPEAKER_00: He is figuring out his body, he's becoming more coordinated, he's exploring all that kind of stuff.
27:02
SPEAKER_00: It's it's fun and it's cute and all that.
27:05
SPEAKER_00: In 30 years, if he was chewing on his toes, we would have a problem.
27:11
SPEAKER_00: That would not be good.
27:12
SPEAKER_00: Would not be good.
27:14
SPEAKER_00: So we can say that there's something that a child does, a baby does.
27:19
SPEAKER_00: There's nothing wrong with it.
27:21
SPEAKER_00: In fact, it's a good thing.
27:23
SPEAKER_00: Yet, in maturity, in time, he should come to a different activity.
27:28
SPEAKER_00: Okay?
27:28
SPEAKER_00: So what Paul is saying here is he says, basically, right now, the work that they are doing, so gifted, so powerful, so wonderfully skilled to build up the church, he's like, that's that's kind of the activities of the child.
27:42
SPEAKER_00: Not that they are bad, but they are here for a time.
27:45
SPEAKER_00: And later on, what will happen is that we will realize that there is something greater to be done, that we won't be focused on chewing our toes, right?
27:54
SPEAKER_00: But we will recognize what it means to live with love.
27:57
SPEAKER_00: And the better way, compared to twelve, and focusing on spiritual gifts, the better way is that we take an aspect of the eternal kingdom and bring it to the now.
28:09
SPEAKER_00: That we take the thing that we recognize about love and the fact that love can be realized now.
28:15
SPEAKER_00: Love, the love of Christ, can be felt now.
28:18
SPEAKER_00: It is not this dim mirror.
28:19
SPEAKER_00: We can understand and express that to each other through actions.
28:24
SPEAKER_00: We can take that thing that will be present in heaven and bring it, sort of yank it down and live with it now.
28:31
SPEAKER_00: That is the better way.
28:33
SPEAKER_00: And so Paul is right taking all of these things, and he says, in their case, you want to speak with tongues, in our case, you want to use some other spiritual gift, you want to do something for the kingdom of God, you want to live with obedience and honor and integrity, and so on and so forth, he says, but act like people who belong to the kingdom and bring that love in.
28:57
SPEAKER_00: Because no matter how skilled you are, if you are doing it without love, it does nothing of value.
29:06
SPEAKER_00: You are nothing of value, and you gain nothing of value.
29:10
SPEAKER_00: And when he says you are nothing of value, it's it's not that you're not a child of God or something like that.
29:15
SPEAKER_00: But what he says is, again, to the Corinthians, you think you're so special.
29:20
SPEAKER_00: And he says, I just want to kind of bring you low.
29:23
SPEAKER_00: So love is the better way.
29:26
SPEAKER_00: Love lasts.
29:28
SPEAKER_00: Love is the reflection of Jesus Christ.
29:31
SPEAKER_00: And it's that that brings us to our final passage this morning.
29:36
SPEAKER_00: Beloved, concluding in a book, not in 1 Corinthians, but in 1 John, beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
29:48
SPEAKER_00: Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.
29:53
SPEAKER_00: Popular phrase today.
29:55
SPEAKER_00: In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only son into the world so that we might live through him.
30:03
SPEAKER_00: In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son to be the propitiation or the sacrifice for our sins, the atonement.
30:12
SPEAKER_00: Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
30:16
SPEAKER_00: A few concluding remarks on this.
30:19
SPEAKER_00: So the same guy who wrote John 3.16, right?
30:23
SPEAKER_00: God so loved the world, sin his one and only son.
30:27
SPEAKER_00: I imagine that there were some people near John who were like, John, you say, for God so loved the world that he sent his only son, but what does that mean?
30:40
SPEAKER_00: And what does it have to do with me?
30:43
SPEAKER_00: And so I think John probably wrote something like this.
30:47
SPEAKER_00: Let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.
30:54
SPEAKER_00: There is no relationship with God where love is absent, right?
31:00
SPEAKER_00: We might have this intellectual, brainy understanding of who God is, but to truly comprehend the love of God, it involves love from us, right?
31:14
SPEAKER_00: How could you expect to say that you understand the love that God showed in his sacrifice of his son if either you have not sacrificed something for somebody else in love or you do not have somebody in your life that you love so much that you cannot imagine sacrificing them for something else?
31:35
SPEAKER_00: How can we say that we love if we don't understand it by showing it to others?
31:41
SPEAKER_00: How could you say that you love people and that you weep with those who weep, as God says He does, if you have never loved someone enough or their circumstances to be able to weep with them when they go through hard things?
31:55
SPEAKER_00: How could you say that you rejoice?
31:57
SPEAKER_00: This is chapter 12, too, of 1 Corinthians, how could you say that you rejoice with somebody who rejoices if you have never loved somebody enough to say that when they have success in this life, you don't look at them with envy, but you can simply say, I'm happy for you.
32:13
SPEAKER_00: We look at all of the things that God says that He does and is expressed through Jesus Christ in His love for us, and we say, really, the only way that we can fully comprehend and understand these things, this side of heaven, is by showing love to other people.
32:29
SPEAKER_00: And so taking that phrase, which is kind of abused in our world today, that God is love, what we see in that is not that it is some just generalized statement of acceptance, but rather it is a dramatic statement of sacrifice.
32:46
SPEAKER_00: Because in the immediately following context, he says, God is love, and this in this, the love of God was made manifest among us.
32:56
SPEAKER_00: Who is love?
32:58
SPEAKER_00: Jesus.
32:59
SPEAKER_00: Right?
33:00
SPEAKER_00: And so when we look at the cross, we both see in the ministry of Jesus the way that he loved other people, and then through the cross, we see that God's love was shown in this one beautiful act.
33:13
SPEAKER_00: Well, it was shown in many acts, I shouldn't say that, but it was shown most dramatically in the act of giving of himself and his son so that we might live.
33:26
SPEAKER_00: In this, in the cross, in the sacrifice of Christ, in the using of freedom to benefit somebody else, and the action in this is love.
33:39
SPEAKER_00: Not that we have loved God, we probably shouldn't attach that to ourselves.
33:43
SPEAKER_00: We've done a pretty poor job of loving God, but that he loved us even still and sent his son to be the, again, the atonement, the sacrifice for our sins, the propitiation.
33:56
SPEAKER_00: Then verse 11 to finish, beloved God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.
34:01
SPEAKER_00: We look at all these things that Paul says in chapter 13, and we say, okay, I get that love is important, I get that love is the better way, I get that it is different, but I struggle because I am the person that he talks about in verses one through three, where he says, You do all these wonderful things, but you still struggle to love.
34:21
SPEAKER_00: And that's where I tell you that I identify with you because I am driven absolutely by a sense of duty.
34:29
SPEAKER_00: I am not, I struggle with this idea of loving well.
34:32
SPEAKER_00: I very much do.
34:34
SPEAKER_00: And in particular, I struggle with carrying out the will of God in a way that means that I am doing it because I genuinely care for the other person and not because I just feel like it's something I should be doing.
34:48
SPEAKER_00: The fact that I am driven by duty is a double-edged sword because, on the one hand, and during hard times, it's okay for me to kind of walk forward.
34:56
SPEAKER_00: When hard people come along or hard circumstances, I move forward because it's what I feel like I should be doing.
35:02
SPEAKER_00: But at the same time, I tremble when I read those first couple verses because I recognize I am far too often not the person who is doing things simply because I care for somebody else.
35:15
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing it because I feel like I should.
35:18
SPEAKER_00: So perhaps I'm alone in that, but this is what I do, and this is what I think you can do, whether or not you struggle with this in the same way, but because all of us struggle with loving people as we should.
35:32
SPEAKER_00: A couple things.
35:33
SPEAKER_00: One is that I'd still think that we can look at chapter 13 here, even though it's not an exhaustive list of what love looks like, it's still a pretty long list.
35:44
SPEAKER_00: And so I think the first step is we can look at these things and we can say, man, how am I not patient?
35:50
SPEAKER_00: How am I not kind?
35:52
SPEAKER_00: How am I boastful?
35:53
SPEAKER_00: So on and so forth, and begin to examine and drill down on this idea of love until it becomes much more specific to you.
36:00
SPEAKER_00: Not this concept, but something that you can act on, because acting in love for you is still this philosophy.
36:08
SPEAKER_00: Rather, you can comprehend what it means to be patient with somebody, to be kind with somebody you are normally not, and as Jesus says, you don't get credit if it's easy to be patient with them.
36:21
SPEAKER_00: So somebody that you're often impatient with, that you can be more patient with.
36:26
SPEAKER_00: So I think that's the first step, is we can we can get much more specific with these things.
36:30
SPEAKER_00: Second is we can, as it says here in 1 John, we must reflect upon the true source of love, Jesus Christ and what he did.
36:40
SPEAKER_00: And we must continually use that as this like never-ending well of motivation for us.
36:47
SPEAKER_00: Because to think that you've just grasped the idea that Jesus died for your sins, no, you haven't.
36:56
SPEAKER_00: You really have it.
36:57
SPEAKER_00: You have not fully understood, and I don't think until we get to the end, and God says, Let me show you all the things that you have done that I've covered over with my blood.
37:06
SPEAKER_00: I think that is when we will finally at least get a sense of what it means that Jesus died on the cross for you and me, even though we didn't deserve it.
37:16
SPEAKER_00: But yet that becomes this eternal well for us that we draw from.
37:20
SPEAKER_00: When we get down and we don't feel like loving, we say, Yet who has loved me far more than I deserve?
37:26
SPEAKER_00: And who has given me the power to be able to love more than I deserve?
37:32
SPEAKER_00: Than some other people deserve?
37:34
SPEAKER_00: Jesus.
37:36
SPEAKER_00: We don't do it for ourselves, we do it for Him.
37:39
SPEAKER_00: But the last thing that I would say with regard to this is that though we must be careful that we are not building ourselves up because of the things we do for the kingdom without love, there is still a matter of obedience here where walking sort of, even if it's trudging at the beginning, walking in some of these lanes that have been outlined as acts of love, even if we don't feel like it in the moment, eventually draw us deeper into love so that we understand it.
38:11
SPEAKER_00: Meaning you don't you feel like you struggle to love people, put yourself in a situation that maybe you're not super excited about, but will require you to act with love.
38:23
SPEAKER_00: And I think you're going to find, especially if you are praying towards these things, that God would build this up within you, that you begin to develop love for those things because you desire it, and God is happy to answer that prayer request.
38:37
SPEAKER_00: God, make me love other people more than I already do.
38:41
SPEAKER_00: I give this over to you.
38:43
SPEAKER_00: I'm doing something that I feel like I should be doing, and I want to love them more.
38:48
SPEAKER_00: I want to act with love more, I want my life to be filled with more love.
38:52
SPEAKER_00: Father, help me to do that.
38:53
SPEAKER_00: I think he is faithful to answer that prayer request.
38:57
SPEAKER_00: So the Corinthians, they struggled in a lot of ways.
39:01
SPEAKER_00: We struggle in a lot of ways, but yet we must see that love is the better way and that it lasts.
39:08
SPEAKER_00: And when everything sort of shakes out, ultimately that is our goal is to love others like Jesus has loved us.
39:15
SPEAKER_00: And if we don't do that, nothing of value comes.
39:20
SPEAKER_00: Let's pray.
39:23
SPEAKER_00: Heavenly Father, we thank you for today.
39:28
SPEAKER_00: God, I thank you that you love us, that you have loved us, that you love us now, and you will continue to love us.
39:36
SPEAKER_00: And there is nothing that we have done and nothing we can do to make that not so.
39:42
SPEAKER_00: Lord, your love is an eternal one.
39:44
SPEAKER_00: And your love lasts, and it is defined by action, and in particular, it is made manifest in Christ.
39:52
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that you would help us to use the cross more often as a source for love for other people, even when we don't feel like it.
40:00
SPEAKER_00: Lord, I pray that we would look to the way that we love people and see how we have fallen short of the example that you have set.
40:08
SPEAKER_00: And God, I pray that you would break our hearts to realize that no matter where we are, we still don't love people enough.
40:17
SPEAKER_00: Lord, we don't love people the way that you love people.
40:20
SPEAKER_00: And God, that will be our lifetime goal is to just get close to that.
40:27
SPEAKER_00: Father, I pray that by the power of your Spirit, you would help us to see that we can love people just how you have loved us, Lord.
40:36
SPEAKER_00: We can love people, that we can bring an element of heaven to earth now by the way that we show love to people.
40:44
SPEAKER_00: And Father, I pray that you would give us the courage to do so and the tenacity to carry it out.
40:49
SPEAKER_00: Finally, Lord, I ask that you would forgive me and you would forgive anybody else, God, who has been carrying on a little too long with just doing things out of empty piety.
41:03
SPEAKER_00: God, not truly filled with a desire and a compassion for others.
41:08
SPEAKER_00: Father, I pray that you would bring that to our hearts and you would break them open for your people.
41:14
SPEAKER_00: God, we love you and we thank you.
41:16
SPEAKER_00: It's in Jesus' name we pray.
41:18
SPEAKER_00: Amen.
41:19
SPEAKER_00: Thanks everybody for coming.
41:21
SPEAKER_00: Hope you check out the uh brochures that you're given for Fed and Lead and the other offerings.
41:27
SPEAKER_00: Have a great week.