I have talked a lot more about BBQ than I think I ever have and
I ever will in my entire life now that Jonah Chitty is here,
having come from the South. And today I yet again will use
an illustration referencing BBQ. When you are barbecuing you, you
want to get a barbecue in there. I already made a mistake.
You can't. You're not barbecuing.
BBQ is a food group. OK, We're learning this from the
people from the South. BBQ is a food group.
We, I call a BBQ the thing that we cook on.
But when you want to get flavor into the meat, you have to use
spices and you have to use all these, these different things
to, to get the flavor into the meat.
But if you just throw the spices on the meat itself, when you
throw it on the grill, things start to fall off, right?
And as you cook it, the, the, the seasoning and the flavor
falls off and you lose whatever you put on there.
And so as I've learned, you use what is called a binder.
And so a binder could be mustard or a hot sauce or any sort of
BBQ sauce or something that you put on the meat 1st.
And then you put the spices and the seasoning on there so that
they stick to the meat. And then that way as you grill,
I mean, some of it's still going to fall off.
But now you have that binder that is holding the seasoning
and the, and the spices to the meat.
So the flavor stays there giving you a nice well flavored meat.
And as we've been talking about for the last couple of weeks,
we've been talking about spiritual gifts in the church.
And if you have the Spirit, you've been saved by Christ into
the family of Christ, which is his church, and you've been
given a gift by the Holy Spirit to help the church grow into the
fullness of Christ. And last week, Pastor Jake
talked about the church being a body.
And with a body, we have many different members, but those
members make up one body. They have different gifts, they
have different activities in ways that they can serve, but
they all make up one body. Now, what this means is that as
one body, we are working together toward a common goal.
As your body goes throughout your day, all of your faculties
are working together for a specific task.
Your body parts are not pulling different directions.
And so we need to have a common goal, which is why we all need
to have and acknowledge Christ as our head.
Christ is the one who leads and guides us as a church.
But in First Corinthians 13, Paul points out a sin that is
going on in the church and that can be in any church, and that
is serving without love. What Paul wants us to understand
is that love is what binds us together.
We are called and gifted by the Spirit to help one another grow.
But if we serve one another without love, it's like throwing
the spice on the meat without the binder.
It just falls off as you cook it.
You don't feel that impacted by someone who serves you without
love. And so if we serve with love,
it's like using the binder on the meat.
It's like, it's like slathering your service so that that that
service can stick. It's you're slathering your love
for one another with that so that it sticks, so that it means
something. You feel greatly blessed and
impacted by someone who serves you because of their love for
you. So this morning, what we're
going to learn is the reasons of why love binds us together as
Paul shows them to hear to us in First Corinthians 13.
And so this morning, we're going to learn the importance of love,
the proof of your love, and the eternality of your love.
Let's bow forward with prayer before we open up God's Word.
Father, we thank you for your word to us.
We thank you that we get to read it, and we thank you, Lord, that
it is your inspired word. It is authoritative for every
area of our life. And Lord, we stand on it as your
truth. And we pray that as we read it
that your Spirit would open our eyes, that you would teach us
together and unify our hearts so that we might serve one another
with love together as your body. We ask this in Jesus name, Amen.
Turn with me in your Bibles to 1st Corinthians chapter 13.
First Corinthians chapter 13. I'm speaking from the ESV if
anybody wants to pull it up on your phone or your tablet or
whatever. First Corinthians chapter 13
says if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have
not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and
all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains,
but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have and I
deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain
nothing. Love is patient and kind.
Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way.
It is not irritable or resentful.
It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with
the truth. Love bears all things, believes
all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will
pass away. As for tongues, they will cease.
As for knowledge, it will pass away, for we know in part and we
prophecy 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.
And 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 faith, hope, and love
abide these three. But the greatest of these is
love. The first thing we're going to
see this morning is the importance of your love.
How important is love in the body of Christ?
Another way maybe to ask the question is what's love got to
do with it? The answer is everything.
Love is not an optional add on for the Christian.
If we have Christ's Spirit in us, we must love one another
because God is love. This is because without love
you're annoying, Paul says in verse one.
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not
love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
The gift of speaking in tongues, if not done with love, is just
an annoying sound. Now the gift of tongues is is
the ability to speak a different language, and at times the
Spirit enabled people to do this without themselves understanding
what language it was they were speaking.
We see this in Acts chapter 2 with the coming of the Holy
Spirit, where they were given the ability to speak in many
different languages so that everybody who was present could
hear of the works of God. Now, this gift was one that the
Corinthians were abusing, and they were not using this gift in
love. And so Paul tells them, even if
you use this gift, if you're not using it with love, you're just
an obnoxious sound. You're just annoying to use.
Even a miraculous gift like speaking in tongues without love
is nothing more than an obnoxious noise.
Nobody cares. Nobody wants to hear it.
Worse, everybody's annoyed by it.
Next we see that without love you are nothing, Paul says in
verse 2. If if I have prophetic powers
and understands all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have
all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I
am nothing. Even the gift of speaking forth
the truth of God's Word or having wisdom or incredible
faith. Without love, Paul says I am
nothing. Paul defines what prophecy is in
First Corinthians 14 verse three.
He says it's the one who prophesized speak to people for
their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.
And so even understanding God's Word, even being able to explain
it in a way that builds others up and encourages them.
But if you do that without love, you are nothing.
These gifts, again, are given to help the body, but the point is
that we're using them with love, and if we don't, there's nothing
to them. If you do not bind your gift
together with love, even for all your wisdom, even with all of
your knowledge, even with all of your faith, you are still
nothing. Next we see that without love
you gain nothing. If I give away all I have verse
3, and if I deliver up my body to be burned but have not love,
I gain nothing. Even in the most sacrificial act
of sacrificing all that you have, even all that you are,
your own body, if done without love, gains you nothing.
The point that Paul is making here is if you don't have love,
it doesn't matter how impressive you are, it doesn't matter how
gifted you are, it doesn't matter how much you sacrifice.
You're annoying, you're nothing, and you gain nothing.
How important is love? If you don't have it, you're
nothing. But if you have it, you have
everything. The Bible tells the story of
Job, a man who walked in the fear of the Lord and and God
allowed Satan to take everything that he had, almost everything
that he had. Thankfully Job had some
wonderful friends. Chapter 2 verse one says
Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar made an appointment to come together
to show him sympathy and comfort and the best comfort they
offered him was the first seven days where they sat in silence.
The 1st to speak is Eliphaz who says in Job chapter 4 verses 7
and 8 remember who that was innocent ever perished or where
were the upright cut off? As I have seen those who plow
iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.
In other words, hey Job, you're getting what you deserve.
Next, Bildad chimes in and about the death of Job's kids, and he
says in eight verses, 4 through 6, if your children have sinned
against him, he has delivered them into the hand of their
transgression. If you will see God and plead
with the Almighty for mercy, if you are pure and upright, surely
then He will rouse Himself for you and restore your rightful
habitation. Basically your kids are getting
what they deserved. Then Zophar has to add his two
cents and he says in Chapter 11, verses 4 through 6.
For you say my doctrine is pure, and I am clean in God's eyes.
But oh, that God would speak and open his lips to you, and that
he would tell you the secrets of wisdom, for He is manifold in
understanding. Know then that God exacts of you
less than your guilt deserves. You should be getting it worse
than you are, Job. Don't you all wish you could
have such wonderful friends? Job responds in chapter 16,
verse one through 5. I've heard many such things.
Miserable comforters. Are you all?
Shall windy words have an end? Or what provokes you that you
answer? I also could speak as you do.
If you were in my place, I could join words together against you
and shake my head at you. These men all thought that they
were intelligent and gifted in the truth of God, but they were
wrong. They were wrong because what
they didn't understand is that God allows righteous people to
suffer. But besides that, they forgot to
love their friend. Because of this, they were
obnoxious and annoying. They were nothing and they
gained nothing except a rebuke from God.
Brothers and sisters, we need to know the importance of love in
all that we do. Service done without love is
totally meaningless. We all have a gift from the Holy
Spirit, but if we use that apart from love for one another, then
we're annoying. We are nothing.
We are gaining nothing. There is no advantage whatsoever
to this sort of sacrifice. None.
We must seek to serve one another with love.
Why? Because God is love first.
John 4 verses 7 through 8 says Beloved, let us love one
another, for love is from God and whoever loves has been born
of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does
not know God because God is love.
If we are his children, then we must love.
Now we all know that this is hard because we're all sinners.
We all fall short and we disappoint one another.
And some practical things that we can do to grow our love for
one another is by being willing to forgive one another when we
sin against each other. When someone has sinned against
you, take that to the Lord. Forgive them.
Don't hold it against them. Don't harbor a bitter heart
towards them. Maybe you even need to reach out
to them and maybe confront an issue, but confess.
Confess maybe your sin, but forgive so that bitterness
doesn't get harbored in your heart.
And then you can love them. Another way for us to love one
another is by praying for them. If you're having a hard time
loving a specific person in your life, then pray for them.
Your heart will turn towards them and the Lord will soften
your heart towards them. But if we want our service to
have a meaningful impact, then we must serve out of love.
Next we're going to see the proof of your love.
Well, now it begs the question, well, well, if we're supposed to
love each other, well, what is love?
What does love mean? What what is love?
Has love some sort of ooey gooey feeling that I get when I think
of certain people? Or as soon as I see someone my
my heart skips a beat? Or is love a kiss or a hug?
This is what our world tells us. Our world tells us that that we
can fall in and out of love. It's based on a feeling that you
get towards someone or a feeling that you have towards someone.
And if you don't have that feeling, then obviously you
don't love them. But this is not how Paul views
love. Love is action.
Love does things. Love is your attitude and your
actions toward other people. It's not a feeling.
If you put your first self first, you don't have love.
We're going to look at how Paul sort of lays these two things
out. This is how you know that you
have love. And if you put yourself first,
you don't have love. And so Paul is going to give us
a list of things that love does and does not do.
But let's first look at the things that love does not do
beginning in this, the part of verse four there love does not
envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude.
It does not insist on its own way.
It is not irritable or resentful.
It does not rejoice at wrongdoing.
All of these attitudes and actions toward others show that
you don't have love. This is exactly how the
Corinthians were treating one another.
Some were jealous of others in their gifts and and felt more
worthy. And then there were others who
felt like they had less of a gift and they felt less worthy
than others. And this led to this dynamic
between those who were more spiritual and those who were
less spiritual. This is not love in the body.
And so these people who thought they were more worthy valued
themselves and their gifts and, and their possessions more than
others. And so they were rude and, and
they insisted on their own way and began pushing their way
around in the church. And all this led to is, is them
being irritated by one another, being resentful of one another,
and they began looking for and rejoicing in one another's
faults. In all of these attitudes and
actions, what is the heart? What is the center me?
When you put yourself first, you prove that you don't have love.
But if you put others first, you do have love.
Now let's look at the things that Paul says that love does
do. The beginning of verse 4 says
love is patient and kind. Skipping to the second-half of
verse six and seven, he says love rejoices with the truth.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,
endures all things. All of these attitudes and
actions toward others prove that you do love.
When this is your response. This shows love.
And so, rather than being irritated and rude, the
Corinthians needed to be patient and kind toward one another.
Rather than looking for mistakes and faults in others, they
needed to seek the truth and goodness of God and rejoice in
that. And then Paul concludes his list
with these four incredible statements.
Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,
endures all things. Danny Akin summarizes this
section beautifully. What Paul is saying is that love
always sees the glass not just half full, but totally full.
It always looks for the good, the positive.
It does not look over people's faults, but it overlooks
people's faults. There is a staying power to true
love, like a flame that cannot be quenched.
Love takes the Longview, not the short view.
It keeps the big picture in mind.
It hangs in there with other people even under their worst
circumstances, and refuses to quit.
For married couples, it takes seriously those words.
Until death do us part, you simply cannot kill a love that
bears, keeps believing and hoping through, and endures all
things. That is a love that will last
through all adversity and stand the test of time.
Love is not a fleeting emotion, but a faithful, diligent resolve
to fight for those for whom Christ has died.
When these attitudes and actions are present in our lives, it
shows that we put others 1st, and it proves our love for them.
Jonathan had this kind of selfless love for David.
After rejecting Saul as king, God had chosen David, the young
shepherd boy, and anointed him as the future king of Israel.
And not long after, David defeated Goliath, which saved
and inspired the nation of Israel.
But David also caught the attention of Jonathan, King
Saul's son. And after seeing David's
courageous battle and how he handled himself in his
conversation with his father Saul, he was knit to the soul of
David. And Jonathan loved him as his
own soul. And Jonathan recognized that God
was with David in a special way. In first Samuel 18, verse 4
tells us that Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on
him and gave it to David and his armor and even his sword and his
bow and his belt. Jonathan gave up his right to
the throne and was committed to God's plan through David.
Jonathan proved his love for David by saving him time and
time again from his father's plots to kill him.
And King Saul didn't understand what Jonathan was doing.
In First Samuel 20 we read You son of a perverse, rebellious
woman. Do I not know that you have
chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame, and to the shame of
your mother's nakedness? For as long as the son of Jesse
lives on the earth, neither you nor your Kingdom shall be
established. Therefore send and bring him to
me, for he shall surely die. Then Jonathan answered Saul, his
father. Why should he be put to death?
What has he done? But Saul hurled his spear at him
to strike him. So Jonathan knew that his father
was determined to put David to death.
And Jonathan rose from the table in fierce anger and ate no food
the second day of the month. For he was grieved for David
because his father had disgraced him.
He wasn't concerned about his own life that his father had
just tried to take. He was concerned for David in
the disgrace that he was facing. Jonathan's love for David was
proved in his actions and his attitudes toward him.
Jonathan couldn't put himself first.
He could have said, I'm in line to be the next king.
I'm not letting you take this position, but he put David
first. He submitted to 1st to God's
will, and he submitted to David as God's servant, and he showed
his love to him despite all that he suffered.
Brothers and sisters, this is the kind of steadfast love that
we must have for one another. We must strive to put others
first, even enduring suffering ourselves, so that others are
blessed and strengthened and encouraged in Christ.
This is going to take much more than emotion and feeling.
This is going to take a resolve, a commitment, a dedication to
God first, and then a dedication to His children.
So often we are only willing to love when we feel like it.
Our love must be deeper than that.
It must endure even when others fail or even sin against us.
Do you love your brothers and sisters in this church?
Maybe you're wondering if you do or not.
Well, how do you know? Well, Paul shows us how we can
tell if we know if we love others.
How do you act towards your brothers and sisters in Christ?
What is your attitude towards your brothers and your sisters
in Christ? Do you envy?
Do you boast? Are you arrogant or rude?
Are you insisting on your own way?
Are you irritable or resentful towards your brothers and
sisters in Christ? Do you rejoice when they fall?
Brothers and sisters, if these are the attitudes and actions in
your heart towards brothers and sisters in Christ, you do not
love. We must pray to the Lord to
forgive us for our hard hearts and pray that He softens our
hearts to love one another and in our flesh.
We cannot do it, we cannot love as we ought to, but through
Christ we can be patient and kind toward one another.
Through Christ we can rejoice together in truth.
Through Christ we can bear all things, believe all things, hope
all things, and endure all things.
Through Christ and the power of His Spirit within us, we can
prove our love for one another by putting others first.
The next thing we see is the eternality of love.
Paul has already shown us the importance of love and and that
is that without love you are nothing.
He's also shown us the proof of our love, that whether or not
you love someone is shown in your attitudes and your actions
toward them. And now Paul shows the
eternality of love. This is the reason why love is
so much greater than gifts and everything else.
Love for one another is so much more important than gifts or
service or actions toward one another.
And this is because your gifts will pass away.
Look at verses 8 through 10. Love never ends.
As for prophecies, they will pass away.
As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will pass
away. For we know in part and we
prophecy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will
pass away. No matter how great of a gift
you have to serve the church, it will pass away.
Now it may have been that Paul picked these three unique gifts,
prophecy, tongues, and knowledge, because they were
specific gifts that the Corinthians were abusing.
But Paul says here that there's coming a day when you won't need
these gifts anymore. The Holy Spirit has given the
spiritual gifts to the church so that the church can grow into
the knowledge of Christ, into the maturity of Christ, into the
the fullness of Christ its Savior.
And the reason we need each other is because we live in a
fallen world, and we're constantly tempted to turn our
eyes away from Christ, down to the things of this world.
And so we need people to turn us back to the focus that we have
on Christ. But guess what, when the perfect
comes and we all stand in the presence of our Lord and Saviour
Jesus Christ and our faith finally becomes sight, I won't
need you to remind me to trust in Christ and to pray to Him who
hears, because I will see and speak to my Saviour who lives
and pleads for me. You won't need me to remind you
to be in God's Word every day and to walk in obedience to
Christ because you will know and be taught by the Word Himself.
We won't need each other to be there for each other in the
highs and the lows of this life because we will see Jesus Christ
our Savior face to face. Amen.
Paul then uses an illustration of a child.
He says, 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. Paul is trying to help us to
understand the the limits of our knowledge while we live here in
this life. Children are limited in their
understanding because they're young, they're inexperienced,
they don't know things as they ought to, and so they just don't
understand things very well. Me and our children were were
enjoying the the World Series and and the baseball playoffs
this this year. And we enjoyed watching.
And I was surprised that they enjoyed watching baseball so
much. But I think what surprised me
more is their ridicule of the baseball players as they watched
on TV. And you watched that pitch
coming and you're like, why didn't you swing at that?
How can you hit that? I could hit that so easy.
Now, for those who maybe don't know baseball very well, here
you have a guy, a pitcher, who's standing 60 feet and six inches
away from you, throwing the ball 100 miles an hour, giving you .4
seconds to decide if you're going to swing the bat.
Not only that, but the pitcher throws different kinds of
pitches. So maybe one time you're
expecting a fastball that comes straight in the middle of the
plate, and the next time it's going to dive down into the dirt
and you're going to swing right over it.
It might be the hardest thing in sports to do and my but if my
children were there, they would hit a home run every time.
But that's the mind of a child, right?
A child doesn't understand. A child doesn't see as they
ought to. And that's exactly what Paul is
saying. We are, you're like children.
You don't get it. We don't understand as we live
in this world, we're like children.
We're like looking in a mirror dimly.
We we can kind of see, but we can't.
And that's why we need spiritual gifts because we help each other
to see a little bit more clearly.
But Paul says just in part, it only helps a little bit.
We still don't see as we ought to, but we still try to .1
another to Christ. But one day we will not be
children, we will be adults. We will not see in a mirror
dimly. We will see face to face.
Paul is definitely thinking of seeing his Savior Christ face to
face and we will understand and we won't need anyone to point us
to Christ anymore. Your gifts are going to pass
away, but your love will never end.
As the beginning of verse 8, Paul says love never ends and in
verse 13 he says so. Now faith, hope, and love abide
these three, but the greatest of these is love.
In heaven we will see the reality of our faith.
We will no longer need the gifts to point us to Jesus because we
will see him face to face. John MacArthur says this so
well. The objects of faith and hope
will be fulfilled and perfectly realized in heaven, but love,
the God, like virtue, is everlasting.
Heaven will be the place for the expression of nothing but
perfect love toward God and each other.
Spiritual gifts are only necessary for this short time
here on earth, but they will pass away.
But love is eternal. It will never end.
Therefore, let us pursue love for one another.
Brothers and sisters, what are you focusing on?
Are you focusing on your gifts and your service toward others,
or are you pursuing one another in love?
How do you view church? Is this the place that you come
to feel better about yourself? You feel like you you checked
the box to going to church. And so now God is happy with me
because I went to church on Sunday.
Maybe you feel like you have some valuable gift to give to
the church and and now you've and in using it, you earn extra
brownie puts. I went to church.
Not only did I go to church on Sunday, but I also served in the
daycare. Now God's extra pleased with me.
Is that how you view church? Or do you view church as the
redeemed people of God, a chosen priesthood of people that are
holy to the Lord, who have been washed in the love in the blood
of the Lamb, who are loved by God and therefore worthy of
love, worthy of your love? Do you view the church like
that? We are to love like this by
looking at the example of the love of our Saviour.
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.
In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He
loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
If God loved His people so much, do you?
God was willing to send His Son into the world to die for our
sins so that we might live through Him.
Do you love the people Christ died to save?
Are you willing to put others first to prove your love for
them? If you do not have love for the
people for whom Christ died, you are nothing.
Even if you serve them, you gain nothing.
Don't come to church because you think you're earning favour with
God. Going to church doesn't save
you. Giving money to church doesn't
save you. Serving the church doesn't save
you. There is only one way to be made
right before God, and that is salvation through Jesus Christ.
Faith in Him alone. Come to church to love the
people for whom Christ died. Come to share in the highs and
lows of the lives of the believers who are here.
Come to confess your sins to people who will relate to you
and who will pray for you. Come to grow together into the
fullness of Christ our Savior, using our gifts to .1 another to
Jesus our Savior, the reality of our faith who we will one day
see face to face. We will not do this perfectly
and we will sin against one another, but what joy there is
in looking to Christ our Saviour together, experiencing the joy
of His grace and forgiveness as well as one another's
forgiveness. This will make heaven that much
sweeter when we're all in the presence of our Saviour
together, completely free from sin.
Will you be there? Will you be in the presence of
Christ? Will you see him face to face?
The truth is, if you're like me, you're a Sinner.
This means that you cannot stand before a holy God.
But God loved you and me so much that He sent His Son to die in
your place, in my place, as a sacrifice for your sin.
And if you repent of your sin, and if you turn to Christ and
confess Him as your Lord and Savior, you will be saved.
Friend, if you have not done that yet, what are you waiting
for? Come experience the joy and the
peace that comes from having all the sin and guilt, that burden
that you carry, having it released and placed on Jesus
Christ on the cross. Come experience the love of God
as we, the people of God, serve one another together.
As we look forward to that day when we will be with Him for all
eternity, let's pray. Father, we thank you for your
incredible love toward us, Your love that was shown in your
willingness to send Christ as a sacrifice for us.
Or would you daily remind us of our need for grace?
Even as believers, we sin each and every day, and we need Your
grace and Your forgiveness. We need Your Holy Spirit to help
us to love one another more, that we might embody the love of
our Savior. Lord, we pray that You would
help us to love one another, that this community of believers
would be an example of love to all who come in, to all who see
us interacting with one another outside of church, wherever we
may be, and that our love for one another would bring glory
and honour to Jesus Christ our Saviour.
This we ask in Jesus name, Amen.