SPEAKER_00: Hello and welcome to the Sermon Podcast of Mission Hills Church, located in San Marcos, California.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening.
SPEAKER_00: We pray that this message blesses you and your walk with Jesus.
SPEAKER_01: First Corinthians 13, verses 1 through 13.
SPEAKER_01: If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gonk or a clinging symbol.
SPEAKER_01: 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.
SPEAKER_01: If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
SPEAKER_01: Love is patient and kind.
SPEAKER_01: Love does not envy or boast.
SPEAKER_01: It is not arrogant or rude.
SPEAKER_01: It does not insist on its own way.
SPEAKER_01: It is not irritable or resentful.
SPEAKER_01: It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
SPEAKER_01: Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
SPEAKER_01: Love never ends.
SPEAKER_01: As for prophecies, they will pass away.
SPEAKER_01: As for tongues, they will see.
SPEAKER_01: As for knowledge, it will pass away.
SPEAKER_01: For we know in part and we prophesy in part.
SPEAKER_01: But when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
SPEAKER_01: When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.
SPEAKER_01: When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
SPEAKER_01: For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.
SPEAKER_01: Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
SPEAKER_01: So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three.
SPEAKER_01: But the greatest of these is love.
SPEAKER_01: This is the word of the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Well, good morning, Mission Hills Church.
SPEAKER_02: My name is Dennis, I'm a friend of the church, and uh I'm a little bit tempted to just scrap all of this and talk about a faithful shepherd that Sam has been.
SPEAKER_02: And uh you know the scriptures talk so much about um faithfulness at the core of what ministry is all about, and you have done that.
SPEAKER_02: And so uh this body is uh deeply grateful with all the history and everything's fitting that Scott and Terry are here, and we go all of us that go way, way back to Emmanuel Faith days and the Richardsons and just looking around at the Monty Ones, and yeah, God has been faithful, and the Lord has done his good work in and through the ministry of the leaders of this church, and will continue to do that.
SPEAKER_02: And uh, I would just encourage you.
SPEAKER_02: The best advice I ever got before I went into the ministry, uh some of my story, um was I went to Dr.
SPEAKER_02: Strauss, Dr.
SPEAKER_02: Richard Strauss, who pastored Emmanuel Faith for so many years, and uh Doc was dying of cancer, and uh I went to him, and when it became somewhat clear that I uh would uh take that role in the future, I went to him and I asked him, uh, you know, Doc, what's the key?
SPEAKER_02: I've never done this before, so what's the key?
SPEAKER_02: And uh he looked at me and he said, I can only tell you one thing.
SPEAKER_02: He just said, uh, stay low before the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Best advice I ever got.
SPEAKER_02: And Sam, you have modeled that and exhibited that, and I would just encourage you.
SPEAKER_02: It's required of a steward that one be found faithful, and you have done that.
SPEAKER_02: And so together we would say, Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Praise the Lord! Praise the Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, let's open our Bibles together, 1 Corinthians chapter 13.
SPEAKER_02: We're gonna be looking this morning at the great love chapter.
SPEAKER_02: We've studied it a lot here.
SPEAKER_02: It's quoted at weddings, uh, life events.
SPEAKER_02: Uh, it's well known by many of us, but with that familiarity, uh it's a bit of a both a blessing and a challenge.
SPEAKER_02: It's a blessing to know what this text has to say, but it's also a challenge just from the standpoint of we know what it says, and we have a tendency to kind of glaze over the familiar.
SPEAKER_02: And we probably do that more than we care to admit.
SPEAKER_02: Anyone in that boat with me?
SPEAKER_02: Because we're gonna hear again some stuff that every one of us who has been well taught by the scriptures already knows about this whole topic here.
SPEAKER_02: Uh so why study it again?
SPEAKER_02: Well, I really believe that the Word of God is living and active, and as a result can do something new and fresh in my heart and our hearts together about one of the key things that will keep Mission Hills together.
SPEAKER_02: One of the key things that will keep our families together, to keep our marriages together.
SPEAKER_02: And it's this whole topic of love and understanding it in a new and fresh way.
SPEAKER_02: And so that's the reason why we're gonna dig into it and uh it'll become pretty apparent what the text is having to say.
SPEAKER_02: It's just very, very hard to carry out, and that will be the challenge for us as we uh study.
SPEAKER_02: So uh let me remind you of the historic context.
SPEAKER_02: Uh this section in chapter 13 is part of a larger unit in chapters 12 through 14, all having to do with the topic of spiritual gifts.
SPEAKER_02: And as we saw last weekend, if you were here with us, is that in the church at Corinth, they got really confused by this whole issue of gifts.
SPEAKER_02: And we we saw that God gives some gifts that are upfront and visible.
SPEAKER_02: They're public gifts.
SPEAKER_02: And uh the scriptures call them the higher gifts.
SPEAKER_02: Well, what happened in that ancient church?
SPEAKER_02: They defined those higher gifts as better gifts, as superior, that in some way they were better, higher, superior to all the behind the scene gifts that people rarely see, that really hold a church together.
SPEAKER_02: And Paul in chapter 12 said, listen, God designed the entire church and gave specific gifts, both upfront and behind the scenes, so that all were needed.
SPEAKER_02: And remember Mr.
SPEAKER_02: Potato Head that we used last week?
SPEAKER_02: We're all needed to make this church be everything that God wants it to be.
SPEAKER_02: But it's not saying that the upfront public gifts are somehow unimportant.
SPEAKER_02: And that's how Paul concludes chapter 12 with these words in verse 31.
SPEAKER_02: See it with me, this will set our context and then launch us into our study.
SPEAKER_02: Paul writes this, but earnestly desire the higher gifts.
SPEAKER_02: They're the gifts that can influence a larger number of people than necessarily the individual behind the scene kind of gifts typically do.
SPEAKER_02: But then he gave this additional insight, verse 31, and I will show you a still more excellent way.
SPEAKER_02: Using your spiritual gift at Mission Hill's church is one of the keys to building this body and keeping it strong.
SPEAKER_02: Every one of us is needed.
SPEAKER_02: Yet Paul says here, there's even a better way to make Mission Hills strong.
SPEAKER_02: A still most excellent way, as the NIV translates it.
SPEAKER_02: And what's that better way?
SPEAKER_02: The answer is simple: by loving each other.
SPEAKER_02: Especially in this context, using our gifts as expressions of love to each other.
SPEAKER_02: And that's what this whole section then is all about.
SPEAKER_02: Our need to show love to each other.
SPEAKER_02: And Paul interestingly uses a number of different words for love.
SPEAKER_02: Two primary words in the New Testament for love, Philia, which we get Philadelphia, the city of brotherly love.
SPEAKER_02: It's that warm affection that we feel.
SPEAKER_02: It's a sibling, family kind of love, a sense of togetherness.
SPEAKER_02: And that's critical for the health of the church.
SPEAKER_02: But Paul is going to use a different word.
SPEAKER_02: It's the Greek word agape.
SPEAKER_02: Have you heard that before?
SPEAKER_02: Say agape.
SPEAKER_02: Okay, this is this kind of love that God has for us that He says it's the most excellent way to build up the church.
SPEAKER_02: Agape love.
SPEAKER_02: It's not based on how I feel about you, my sense of closeness to you.
SPEAKER_02: It's based upon my commitment to you, whether I feel like it or not.
SPEAKER_02: If I had to define it, I would just call it an act of self-giving, regardless of any gain I might receive for myself.
SPEAKER_02: You can say it a whole bunch of different ways here.
SPEAKER_02: Agape love, it's what gets a person out of bed to go to work again when she or he is dead tired because we've got to pay the bills.
SPEAKER_02: Might not be jumping up and down about doing it, but you're committed to your family and you love your family, and that's agape love.
SPEAKER_02: It's trying to figure out uh what are we gonna have for dinner tonight?
SPEAKER_02: That becomes one of the hard decisions of life, you know, as you kind of get going.
SPEAKER_02: It's cooking, it's cleaning, it's the dishes.
SPEAKER_02: It's going out of your way to listen to somebody.
SPEAKER_02: It's just giving yourself away.
SPEAKER_02: That's what this is all about here.
SPEAKER_02: Uh we we would say um agape love is not transactional.
SPEAKER_02: I do this for you so that you will do this for me.
SPEAKER_02: That's not real love.
SPEAKER_02: It's not uh quid pro quo, it's not this for that, tit for tat, it's not that in any way, shape, or form.
SPEAKER_02: Agape love says, I'll scratch your back, even if you don't scratch mine.
SPEAKER_02: And that's why it's God's kind of love.
SPEAKER_02: But God demonstrates his own love towards us and that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.
SPEAKER_02: So the love of the Lord Jesus that took him to the cross was given even while we were yet sinners, while we were his enemies, while we were hostile to him.
SPEAKER_02: That's the kind of love.
SPEAKER_02: And so, as I'm again known to do, did you come to hear from the Lord this morning?
SPEAKER_02: Come on, Mission Hills Church, did you come to hear from the Lord this morning?
SPEAKER_02: Because God's got something for you personally this morning.
SPEAKER_02: If your heart and your ears are ready to hear it, go out and show love to somebody.
SPEAKER_02: When you leave this place, that's what he wants you to do.
SPEAKER_02: That's his message to you and me and us together, and especially in this church as a whole here.
SPEAKER_02: He sacrificed for me.
SPEAKER_02: Now I get to go sacrifice for him.
SPEAKER_02: He loved me.
SPEAKER_02: Now I get to go love others in his name.
SPEAKER_02: And it's not going to be in the big things typically of life.
SPEAKER_02: It's just in a lot of smaller ways.
SPEAKER_02: Teresa of Calcutta said it this way: in this life, we cannot always do great things.
SPEAKER_02: We can only do small things with great love.
SPEAKER_02: So whether anybody sees it or not, just take it upon yourself.
SPEAKER_02: Show love to somebody.
SPEAKER_02: That's the still more excellent way.
SPEAKER_02: But I have to warn you start loving others, and you're taking a risk of having your heart broken.
SPEAKER_02: Because not everyone responds to love in a good way.
SPEAKER_02: Some will take advantage of you, others will use it against you.
SPEAKER_02: But the alternative is to stop loving.
SPEAKER_02: And the impact of that decision is even more devastating than the risk of loving.
SPEAKER_02: Chuck Swindahl said it this way, as only Chuck could.
SPEAKER_02: Wrap it up carefully around with hobbies and little luxuries, avoid all entanglements, lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness.
SPEAKER_02: But in that casket, safe, dark, motionless, airless, it will change.
SPEAKER_02: It will not be broken, it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable.
SPEAKER_02: The only place outside heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love is hell.
SPEAKER_02: So, did you come to hear from the Lord this morning?
SPEAKER_02: Take the risk.
SPEAKER_02: Give yourself away.
SPEAKER_02: And every time you do it, you'll give away a little of that selfishness in your own heart.
SPEAKER_02: And you'll be reflecting the love of the Lord Jesus Christ that he has shown to you and to me and to us.
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: That's it.
SPEAKER_02: That's the message.
SPEAKER_02: Okay?
SPEAKER_02: Now, what Paul does in the rest of this chapter, and I'll go through this quickly, famous last words, but I'll try and go through this quickly.
SPEAKER_02: Because what Paul does in chapter 13 is he says, why loving each other is the more excellent way.
SPEAKER_02: Why is it so important?
SPEAKER_02: So let me just run through these.
SPEAKER_02: First, it's the indispensable motivation for earning heavenly rewards.
SPEAKER_02: Indispensable motivation.
SPEAKER_02: Verse one.
SPEAKER_02: If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I'm a noisy gong or clanging cymbal.
SPEAKER_02: 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.
SPEAKER_02: If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain zip.
SPEAKER_02: Nada.
SPEAKER_02: Zero.
SPEAKER_02: Nothing.
SPEAKER_02: So the greatest order could speak in languages on earth or in heaven, who communicates without love in her or his heart, for those who are listening, all that person is doing is spouting off religious noise.
SPEAKER_02: And if you had the capabilities of knowing all the mysteries of God, no secrets, you got them all.
SPEAKER_02: But had not love, I am nothing.
SPEAKER_02: And if you could trust God to move mountains, satanic opposition, difficulties and challenges, you had extraordinary faith.
SPEAKER_02: But had no love.
SPEAKER_02: It amounts to nothing.
SPEAKER_02: And even if you take philanthropy to its extreme and you sacrifice to the point where you sell everything you own, or even go to martyrdom, Paul says.
SPEAKER_02: Or you offer your body in the flames, but you have not love.
SPEAKER_02: Paul concludes, I gain nothing.
SPEAKER_02: The point, good deeds done without love for others will gain nothing in eternity for the pure person doing them.
SPEAKER_02: That's a terrifying comment.
SPEAKER_02: But it's one that Jesus spoke of clearly.
SPEAKER_02: Matthew chapter 6, beware of practicing your righteousness before men to be noticed by them, otherwise you have no reward with your Father who is in heaven.
SPEAKER_02: Now, how could someone do these extreme things without some love in her or his heart?
SPEAKER_02: I don't know.
SPEAKER_02: Because quite honestly, I'm appalled at my own selfishness.
SPEAKER_02: And so I find myself more and more.
SPEAKER_02: You know, you don't have to pretend anymore because you've already made all the mistakes and you know everybody else has made theirs too, and so we can just talk about this stuff, you know.
SPEAKER_02: I just find myself praying more and more all the time.
SPEAKER_02: Psalm 139.
SPEAKER_02: Search me, oh God, know my heart.
SPEAKER_02: Try me and know my anxious thoughts.
SPEAKER_02: And see if there be any hurtful way in me.
SPEAKER_02: Because what I want to do when I leave this place this morning, I want to go and show love.
SPEAKER_02: But Lord, I need your help to do that.
SPEAKER_02: It's really, really important.
SPEAKER_02: If we want to have any kind of reward in eternity, we're gonna go out of our way to love.
SPEAKER_02: And indispensable motivation.
SPEAKER_02: So you think about it.
SPEAKER_02: How's your heart?
SPEAKER_02: How's your heart doing?
SPEAKER_02: Secondly, love is important because it's the sacrificial action that gives voice to our words.
SPEAKER_02: And in the church we talk a lot about loving each other.
SPEAKER_02: And we know that Jesus told us by this, all men will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another.
SPEAKER_02: And it's always interesting to me that the evidence of our connection to Jesus is not a doctrinal orthodoxy, as important as that is.
SPEAKER_02: But it's the practical demonstrations that we show.
SPEAKER_02: And thus, if someone says, I love God and hates his brother, he's a liar for the one who does not love his brother, whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen.
SPEAKER_02: So we have to take this idea of love out of theological abstraction and put it in a place of practical action that testify to the reality that we speak.
SPEAKER_02: And that's what love does.
SPEAKER_02: And it's for that reason is these go-through now in verses four through eight, Paul describes love is patient, love is kind.
SPEAKER_02: The interesting thing is he doesn't use nouns.
SPEAKER_02: Love is patient, he doesn't use a noun, he uses a verb.
SPEAKER_02: And so I think a more accurate translation is love is being patient, love is being kind.
SPEAKER_02: And it takes it out of that abstraction and it becomes a reality.
SPEAKER_02: And as we go through each of these, I want you to just think: does this describe who I am?
SPEAKER_02: And let's just let the word in the quietness of our connection with the Holy Spirit affirm us and challenge us.
SPEAKER_02: Love is being patient.
SPEAKER_02: Do you have any I call them EGR people, extra grace required people in your life?
SPEAKER_02: You might be married to one, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02: I mean love is being patient.
SPEAKER_02: Love is being kind.
SPEAKER_02: It's a friendliness, a graciousness, both an attitude and service.
SPEAKER_02: Would people describe you as a kind woman?
SPEAKER_02: A kind young man, older man?
SPEAKER_02: Verse 4, love does not envy.
SPEAKER_02: The original word means to boil, sometimes translated as jealousy here.
SPEAKER_02: In this context, it refers to a negative boiling over.
SPEAKER_02: You get ticked off at people real easily.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 5.
SPEAKER_02: Love isn't rude.
SPEAKER_02: New American translates doesn't act unbecomingly.
SPEAKER_02: Literally, it's without proper form.
SPEAKER_02: And so stated positively, we would say that love is courteous, has a sense of propriety, has some manners.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 5: love does not insist on its own way.
SPEAKER_02: It's not self-seeking.
SPEAKER_02: When my youngest son memorized this verse and he was reciting it back to me, he said, Dad, love is not self-sickening.
SPEAKER_02: And I thought, out of the mouth of babes.
SPEAKER_02: Because that's what destroys relationship of self-sickening.
SPEAKER_02: And how different they would be if we shelved our interests and our rights and our preferences and did not insist on our own way.
SPEAKER_02: Now where he is or how he fares, nobody knows.
SPEAKER_02: And nobody cares.
SPEAKER_02: That's where we end up.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 5.
SPEAKER_02: Love is not irritable.
SPEAKER_02: Paroxuno, the original word, means to be sharp.
SPEAKER_02: When you don't love, you develop a sharp edge.
SPEAKER_02: Where we get easily angered, we get touchy, we get easily provoked.
SPEAKER_02: Some people just say I am temperamental.
SPEAKER_02: I've discovered that temperamental is ninety percent temper and ten percent mental.
SPEAKER_02: I think we all agree that in the church today we need warmer hearts and fewer, hotter heads.
SPEAKER_02: Verse five, love is not resentful.
SPEAKER_02: Doesn't keep records of all the times you've hurt me.
SPEAKER_02: If you're married, are you hearing this?
SPEAKER_02: You don't nurse a grudge.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 6 does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
SPEAKER_02: So a loving friend doesn't find any joy in something that's contrary to God's will.
SPEAKER_02: They don't hide the truth.
SPEAKER_02: They don't delight in evil or injustice or take pleasure in the misfortune of others.
SPEAKER_02: We rejoice with the truth, and this is one of the balances that gets lost here that we need to be loving to each other, that somehow we neglect what's true.
SPEAKER_02: Just the opposite.
SPEAKER_02: True love confronts and warns and disciplines and corrects.
SPEAKER_02: If I love you, I'm not going to let you just run down the road that's going to destroy you.
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to say something to you about it.
SPEAKER_02: That describe you.
SPEAKER_02: But in the process, love hangs on because verse 7, love bears all things.
SPEAKER_02: It literally covers all things.
SPEAKER_02: It speaks about a confidentiality, protection, if you will.
SPEAKER_02: Love doesn't go around gossiping.
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't go around broadcasting.
SPEAKER_02: It believes all things.
SPEAKER_02: It's just saying that love isn't cynical.
SPEAKER_02: It's not suspicious.
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't always think the worst of people.
SPEAKER_02: It gives people the benefit of the doubt.
SPEAKER_02: Bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things.
SPEAKER_02: I'm going to try to not let your failure be the final chapter in my mind of how you're going to turn out.
SPEAKER_02: Stated positively, love is optimistic because I believe in a sovereign God who can take the very worst failures in a person's life and use them for good.
SPEAKER_02: It hopes all things.
SPEAKER_02: Love endures all things.
SPEAKER_02: It perseveres.
SPEAKER_02: It hangs tough.
SPEAKER_02: It weathers every storm.
SPEAKER_02: How are you doing?
SPEAKER_02: Love is really hard to do.
SPEAKER_02: And I would venture to say that it's impossible to do without the Holy Spirit's help because the fruit of the Spirit is love.
SPEAKER_02: And so I would challenge you.
SPEAKER_02: If you really want to love, and all these things that we've talked about, you have to be serious about your relationship with Jesus, about submitting control of your life to his Holy Spirit, as David was sharing about the impact of God's word in our minds and in our hearts.
SPEAKER_02: I love that Colossians 3 passage.
SPEAKER_02: You can't play at this.
SPEAKER_02: See?
SPEAKER_02: Because the promise of God is that if we walk by the Spirit, we will not carry out the desires of the flesh.
SPEAKER_02: Galatians 5.16.
SPEAKER_02: So I don't know, when was the last time you said to the Lord, you could please you come and take control of me?
SPEAKER_02: We know the Holy Spirit's in us.
SPEAKER_02: We know the Word of God is true.
SPEAKER_02: I want this for my life.
SPEAKER_02: When's the last time that you that's a universal sign of surrender, isn't it?
SPEAKER_02: Please, Lord.
SPEAKER_02: Love.
SPEAKER_02: Our indispensable motivation.
SPEAKER_02: It gives voice to our word.
SPEAKER_02: Let me wrap this up.
SPEAKER_02: It's the core virtue that lasts for eternity.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 8.
SPEAKER_02: Love never ends.
SPEAKER_02: Again, literally, the text says love never falls.
SPEAKER_02: Meaning it doesn't collapse under pressure.
SPEAKER_02: It doesn't come to an end when trouble arrives.
SPEAKER_02: And where Paul is going with all of this is he's saying that love will last for all of eternity, but spiritual gifts don't last that long.
SPEAKER_02: And that's why it's a more excellent way, verse 8.
SPEAKER_02: As for prophecies, they'll pass away.
SPEAKER_02: As for tongues, they will cease.
SPEAKER_02: As for knowledge, it will pass away.
SPEAKER_02: He's not devaluing them, he's just saying that they're just temporary.
SPEAKER_02: Verse 9, for we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.
SPEAKER_02: So we just know in part of all the prophecies and all the revelation that we have from the Lord here.
SPEAKER_02: It's just a partial picture.
SPEAKER_02: And the time is going to come when we see the Lord face to face and we'll get the complete picture.
SPEAKER_02: The partial spiritual gifts are needed right now, but in the future they won't.
SPEAKER_02: And thus the analogy.
SPEAKER_02: When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child.
SPEAKER_02: When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
SPEAKER_02: The gifts are very, very appropriate for this present time of life in the church here.
SPEAKER_02: So we're a bit like children with that, but in heaven, we're going to be mature adults.
SPEAKER_02: The gifts won't be needed.
SPEAKER_02: That's the illustration.
SPEAKER_02: For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.
SPEAKER_02: Now I know in part, but I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
SPEAKER_02: Our vision's a little blurry down here.
SPEAKER_02: We don't always see things as clearly as we should.
SPEAKER_02: But the day is coming when we're going to see him face to face.
SPEAKER_02: The day is coming when we'll be made like him and it'll all become clear.
SPEAKER_02: Thus, verse 13.
SPEAKER_02: So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three.
SPEAKER_02: The three virtues make up much of our Christian life.
SPEAKER_02: We live by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, trusting Him to forgive us and accept us.
SPEAKER_02: We live in hope.
SPEAKER_02: Hope for the future, the things to come because of the resurrection of Christ and God's promises of eternal life.
SPEAKER_02: I buried a friend yesterday.
SPEAKER_02: And all these things just hit me that this is the hope.
SPEAKER_02: This is where it matters most.
SPEAKER_02: And we have love for one another in the context of community of sisters and brothers in Christ.
SPEAKER_02: These abide, these remain, these three.
SPEAKER_02: But in heaven, our faith will be sight.
SPEAKER_02: In heaven, our hope will be fulfilled.
SPEAKER_02: But in heaven, we're going to keep right on loving and loving and loving because God is love.
SPEAKER_02: And we will be perfected in that love.
SPEAKER_02: And so where Paul is going is it's just this love is the core virtue, both now and forever.
SPEAKER_02: And that's why Paul extended this teaching into chapter 14 and verse 1 with a very simple command.
SPEAKER_02: Pursue love.
SPEAKER_02: Pursue it.
SPEAKER_02: Not a suggestion, it's a command.
SPEAKER_02: The oko, the verb, is used of a track runner, getting down to the end of a hundred meter and straining to get to the finish line.
SPEAKER_02: Everything going for that finish line.
SPEAKER_02: And that's what we ought to be doing for love.
SPEAKER_02: Everything.
SPEAKER_02: This is our focus.
SPEAKER_02: How do we love each other?
SPEAKER_02: How do we care for each other?
SPEAKER_02: That's where we're looking.
SPEAKER_02: So why?
SPEAKER_02: Because he first loved us.
SPEAKER_02: And as we drink that in, asking God to fill our hearts, fill my heart, fill our hearts with his love.
SPEAKER_02: So much so that it becomes a natural expression of who we are.
SPEAKER_02: And that's what brings our marriages, and that's which brings our friendship, and that which what brings our church.
SPEAKER_02: And that's what really brings my heart together with my relationship with him.
SPEAKER_02: So it's really appropriate that we come to communion time.
SPEAKER_02: So let me invite Gabe and the musicians if you want to come on up.
SPEAKER_02: And let me invite you to all bow your heads for just a second, will you?
SPEAKER_02: I've used a lot of words up here.
SPEAKER_02: All right, Mission Hills Church.
SPEAKER_02: Everybody take a really deep breath, will you?
SPEAKER_02: What is the Holy Spirit saying to you?
SPEAKER_02: What is he affirming that you're doing well?
SPEAKER_02: What is he challenging you to take some steps to love?
SPEAKER_02: And I don't know when the last time where you raised your hands and said, I'm all yours.
SPEAKER_02: Fill my heart with your love.
SPEAKER_02: So hear the prayers of your people, our Father.
SPEAKER_02: All because we're dependent on you.
SPEAKER_02: In Jesus' name we pray.
SPEAKER_02: Amen.
SPEAKER_00: Thank you so much for listening to the Sermon Podcast from Mission Hills Church in San Marcos, California.
SPEAKER_00: We pray that this message blesses you as you love God and love others.
SPEAKER_00: If you would like more information about our church, please visit us at missionhillschurch.org.
SPEAKER_00: God bless.