WEBVTT 00:00:12.000 --> 00:00:17.519 There's a lot of confusion in our world about love, is there not? 00:00:19.359 --> 00:00:28.079 Perhaps it's in reaction to it or in affected by it, who knows, but there's also a lot of confusion in the church about love. 00:00:28.320 --> 00:00:31.199 So I'm not gonna let us off the hook either. 00:00:31.440 --> 00:00:35.359 And in defense of all the confused, love seems simple, but it's not. 00:00:35.439 --> 00:00:38.320 It has this kind of like sneak attack of complexity. 00:00:38.960 --> 00:00:44.320 If you've ever uh had you know relationships, you know what I'm talking about. 00:00:45.280 --> 00:00:46.399 It's like light. 00:00:46.640 --> 00:00:51.119 Light is very simple, but it's also very complex. 00:00:51.280 --> 00:00:52.719 It's simple, you see it. 00:00:52.960 --> 00:00:54.640 You see everything by it. 00:00:55.439 --> 00:01:04.719 But it's also complex because it's a spectrum of different colors that when combined become both bright and invisible at the same time. 00:01:05.040 --> 00:01:18.640 Light is both a particle and a wave, which means it's uh governed by both wavical physics and particular physics, and we have really only begun to scratch the surface of understanding light thanks to quantum mechanics. 00:01:18.879 --> 00:01:21.120 And so love is like that. 00:01:21.280 --> 00:01:31.439 No matter what you believe about God in the Bible, 1 Corinthians 13 is a masterpiece of world literature, and it is arguably the most beautifully cut diamond in all of history. 00:01:31.680 --> 00:01:37.920 For this reason, it is one of the most famous texts, not only in the Bible, but in the world. 00:01:38.319 --> 00:01:44.879 Unfortunately, it is often passed off as kind of heartwarming sap, but it is so much more. 00:01:45.040 --> 00:01:47.040 And I look forward to this morning. 00:01:47.760 --> 00:01:55.519 The text is here in context and kind of snuck between chapters 12 and 14 on spiritual gifts. 00:01:56.000 --> 00:01:59.040 And it reminds us of the ditches of love. 00:02:00.719 --> 00:02:11.840 And we are gonna have, Lord willing, we're going to leave here with a hopefully more robust, uh, powerful, thoughtful, and enduring understanding of what true love is. 00:02:12.319 --> 00:02:22.319 Paul here's been describing the Christian life in Corinthians, and specifically we started with rebukes, then uh then replies, and he's been answering questions and now about spiritual gifts. 00:02:22.400 --> 00:02:28.960 And he, you think, did he like take some notes on love and drop them on the floor and accidentally stick them between chapters 12 and 14? 00:02:29.039 --> 00:02:30.080 But no, he did not. 00:02:30.479 --> 00:02:42.560 It is perfectly placed and critical to his argument because he's talking about how a body works together, and this is an essential ingredient that was often overlooked. 00:02:44.800 --> 00:02:50.400 Paul says at the end of chapter 12, he's going to show us the most excellent way. 00:02:51.599 --> 00:02:53.520 And this is how we should look at real life. 00:02:53.680 --> 00:03:09.199 It's not primarily about gifts doing things, it is about all of our gifts doing one thing, all the spectrum colors in one beam of light that is demonstrating and showing God's love to the world. 00:03:09.759 --> 00:03:11.439 So here's the two ditches. 00:03:12.000 --> 00:03:15.840 That the world reduces it to what in your mind? 00:03:16.000 --> 00:03:16.879 Think of one word. 00:03:16.960 --> 00:03:20.639 If you can sort of think of a synonym that the world might put on love. 00:03:21.520 --> 00:03:24.800 That word might be got your word, okay? 00:03:25.039 --> 00:03:33.120 That word might be emotion, passion, you know, think of your word, feeling. 00:03:33.840 --> 00:03:38.479 That's what Big Bird and Ernie saying to us in, you know, from Sesame Street. 00:03:38.639 --> 00:03:40.240 Love is a feeling everybody likes to feel. 00:03:40.319 --> 00:03:42.000 Yes, love is a really good feeling to have. 00:03:42.159 --> 00:03:43.759 Love is what you feel when you feel you want to sing. 00:03:43.840 --> 00:03:44.400 I'm not gonna go in. 00:03:44.560 --> 00:03:45.520 Okay, so you get it. 00:03:46.240 --> 00:03:49.759 But you can see that the uh indoctrination worked. 00:03:50.479 --> 00:03:51.759 Until it didn't. 00:03:52.080 --> 00:03:53.599 But that's that ditch. 00:03:55.280 --> 00:03:56.800 Darwin was confused by love. 00:03:56.879 --> 00:04:06.719 It was interesting when Darwin writes about love, he's like, you know, this I don't understand love because um if one person is a loving, sacrificial person, that person will get killed off. 00:04:06.800 --> 00:04:07.759 He's not the fittest. 00:04:07.919 --> 00:04:11.360 He'll get defeated by the one who serves himself. 00:04:11.439 --> 00:04:20.079 And so um he was trying to understand how something that he considered to be a noble virtue survived to this day, and he thought, well, what if everybody in a society did that? 00:04:20.240 --> 00:04:22.160 They could all kind of, I guess, evolve together. 00:04:22.240 --> 00:04:26.959 And that was his only explanation for how love survived in the modern world, is that some whole society would do this. 00:04:27.040 --> 00:04:32.720 And of course, he credited the advanced races, and I won't get into that, but uh that's that was Darwin's explanation. 00:04:32.800 --> 00:04:33.920 But his ditch. 00:04:34.560 --> 00:04:38.639 The church ditch is not that it's flattened to a feeling, it's flattened to a decision. 00:04:38.720 --> 00:04:40.480 Love is a decision, it is a commitment. 00:04:40.720 --> 00:04:42.399 And it involves commitments, certainly. 00:04:42.480 --> 00:04:48.079 It involves decisions, it involves important, uh, robust standing for something. 00:04:48.240 --> 00:04:50.720 But it's not only that, is it? 00:04:51.680 --> 00:04:54.639 One of the greatest teachers on this in the modern era, of course, is um C. 00:04:54.879 --> 00:04:54.959 S. 00:04:55.040 --> 00:04:58.959 Lewis, and uh, I don't uh have the slide, but you can go online. 00:04:59.279 --> 00:05:06.639 His teaching on the four loves, the four ancient words for uh uh love, is the only existing recording of his actual voice. 00:05:06.800 --> 00:05:08.399 So you can go on YouTube and look at C. 00:05:08.480 --> 00:05:08.560 S. 00:05:08.639 --> 00:05:13.279 Lewis, Four Loves, and actually hear him reading his own material on the four loves. 00:05:13.360 --> 00:05:20.480 Uh and Lewis would say something like, Um uh the ancient world, let's see if I can't get the Lewis voice. 00:05:20.560 --> 00:05:23.279 I don't have this deep robust voice thought of agape. 00:05:23.519 --> 00:05:28.079 You know, he has that just he has this sort of deep, uh raspy voice, you gotta go hear him. 00:05:28.160 --> 00:05:32.319 But it was agape, eros, uh storge, and phileo. 00:05:32.639 --> 00:05:35.199 And he he gave us these four words and he he lectured on them. 00:05:35.279 --> 00:05:38.879 But it's interesting that the ancient world, here's the thing. 00:05:39.120 --> 00:05:40.800 To me, here's the shocker. 00:05:41.759 --> 00:05:47.279 The ancient world did not know love in the biblical sense. 00:05:47.519 --> 00:05:48.879 It did not know it. 00:05:49.519 --> 00:06:15.279 It was the gift of the Jews to the world in about the third century BC when they translated the Hebrew scriptures into Greek in the uh material that we now know as the Septuagint, because the Hebrews who had scattered around the Mediterranean world were beginning to lose their Hebrew, and so they they all spoke Greek, and so they translated a uh thanks to Ptolemy II of Alexandria, who was the son of the leader under Alexander the Great. 00:06:15.519 --> 00:06:25.680 He requested actually this, and so they produced this uh work, the Old Testament in Greek, and when all the words they chose, there were only two words in the ancient world for love. 00:06:25.759 --> 00:06:31.839 It was philia, or like kind of brotherly love, and eros, or a romantic or a sexual love. 00:06:31.920 --> 00:06:33.199 That's it, that's all they really used. 00:06:33.360 --> 00:06:43.199 But when the Hebrew writers looked at the Old Testament, they saw God's covenantal, committed, affectionate, unconditional love, neither of those words fit. 00:06:43.279 --> 00:06:50.240 And so they chose this obscure word that was relatively unknown and unused in the ancient world, called agape. 00:06:51.360 --> 00:06:59.920 And they put agape in, and hundreds of times it's used in the Old Testament to describe a new type of love that was never understood in the ancient world. 00:07:00.079 --> 00:07:07.759 A sacrificial, giving love that is based not on the value and the worth of the person in front of you, but on the giver only. 00:07:08.879 --> 00:07:14.160 That was the first introduction to the world, and then the New Testament picked it up, and that's the word used in this text, agape. 00:07:16.879 --> 00:07:23.680 In fact, um, when Aristotle lectured on love, he only really talked about one type, philia, and he gave it three parts. 00:07:23.759 --> 00:07:25.680 There was philia friendship based on utility. 00:07:25.759 --> 00:07:27.439 You know, we we we help each other. 00:07:27.680 --> 00:07:28.800 That's one type of love. 00:07:28.959 --> 00:07:32.560 There was philia based on pleasure, we like the same things. 00:07:33.040 --> 00:07:38.639 And then the third part, and the highest part, was there's philia based on honor, that we respect one another. 00:07:38.720 --> 00:07:41.040 But it was absolutely and completely mutual. 00:07:41.120 --> 00:07:45.600 There was no sense of I'm giving this as a gift. 00:07:46.000 --> 00:07:47.120 It was always a mutual. 00:07:47.360 --> 00:07:54.399 There was no concept of a generous, sacrificial, unconditional love. 00:07:55.839 --> 00:07:56.959 Brand new. 00:07:57.199 --> 00:07:59.040 You can check your AI, whatever you like. 00:07:59.199 --> 00:08:02.319 Chat GBT, Gemini, Fat Boy, whatever you use. 00:08:02.639 --> 00:08:10.959 And uh, and if it doesn't tell you that, if it doesn't tell you that this was a gift of the Judeo-Christian tradition, it hasn't read enough. 00:08:11.279 --> 00:08:14.480 So uh take my you can take that to the bank. 00:08:14.560 --> 00:08:22.000 So the Bible teaches that God Himself is the source, the ultimate source and the true source of real love. 00:08:22.720 --> 00:08:24.720 And we're gonna hear about that this morning. 00:08:24.800 --> 00:08:35.360 And the text breaks it down into three parts the necessity of love in the first few verses, then some characteristics of love in the middle verses, and then the permanence of love in the last few verses. 00:08:35.519 --> 00:08:38.320 So pray with me and we'll uh jump into the text. 00:08:38.480 --> 00:08:58.960 So, Father in heaven, as we look at your word, we thank you that you have spoken these amazing and glorious things, beautiful things, wonderful things, eternal things, and you recalibrate our souls to the true north, to our true divine DNA, to that we might live in the image of the God who is love. 00:08:59.120 --> 00:09:00.159 May we do it well. 00:09:00.399 --> 00:09:11.120 Open our eyes this morning to see those things and not only understand them, but to believe them and sense that they are sweet and glorious and be transformed in Jesus' name. 00:09:11.360 --> 00:09:12.000 Amen. 00:09:13.840 --> 00:09:15.360 Verses one through three. 00:09:15.519 --> 00:09:20.399 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I'm only a resounding gong or a clanging symbol. 00:09:20.480 --> 00:09:27.679 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, but have not love, I am nothing. 00:09:27.919 --> 00:09:32.720 If I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 00:09:32.799 --> 00:09:38.159 And if I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. 00:09:38.399 --> 00:09:41.200 Okay, so let me just I know that's almost even hard to believe. 00:09:41.360 --> 00:09:52.240 Like basically he's saying, if you can do, if you can do impossible things, literally be godlike in the earth, but you don't do it with love, it literally doesn't register. 00:09:53.200 --> 00:09:54.480 It doesn't matter. 00:09:54.720 --> 00:09:56.480 And that's not hard to believe, isn't it? 00:09:56.639 --> 00:09:59.360 Like, I mean, isn't I mean it may matter something? 00:10:00.159 --> 00:10:09.840 But let me put it this way can you imagine something that if you took out part of the thing, it became no thing. 00:10:11.360 --> 00:10:16.320 So let's just say you're building a house and you talk to the contractor and you say, hey, how's that house building coming? 00:10:16.399 --> 00:10:17.600 He said, Great, we're actually finished. 00:10:17.679 --> 00:10:19.840 Wow, you guys finished ahead of schedule. 00:10:20.000 --> 00:10:21.279 Um, yeah, yeah, yeah. 00:10:21.360 --> 00:10:27.519 Well, what we decided was, you know, we didn't really think much about the first floor, so we only built the second floor and just set it on the ground. 00:10:28.480 --> 00:10:30.720 So when you go, you'll see your house, it's just sitting there. 00:10:30.879 --> 00:10:35.360 Now, now, Kevin, I'm not an architect, but I'm just thinking that house is probably not very livable. 00:10:35.519 --> 00:10:38.000 Like to take the second floor, just set it on the ground. 00:10:38.159 --> 00:10:39.519 Yeah, who needs a foundation? 00:10:39.679 --> 00:10:40.720 Who needs a first floor? 00:10:40.879 --> 00:10:42.559 We liked the second floor plan the best. 00:10:42.639 --> 00:10:44.000 We thought you'd really enjoy living there. 00:10:44.159 --> 00:10:45.759 So we just did that and left it. 00:10:46.080 --> 00:10:50.000 Okay, that's not part of a house or most of a house. 00:10:50.080 --> 00:10:51.279 That's none of a house. 00:10:51.440 --> 00:10:52.960 Like you can't live there. 00:10:54.399 --> 00:11:00.799 You go into the car dealership, different cars from different makes. 00:11:00.960 --> 00:11:02.960 Over here we have a Ferrari. 00:11:03.200 --> 00:11:04.799 It's only$10,000. 00:11:05.120 --> 00:11:06.799 Well, how is that possible if far is on$10,000? 00:11:07.039 --> 00:11:07.759 Well, come over and check it out. 00:11:07.840 --> 00:11:08.159 Hop in it. 00:11:08.320 --> 00:11:08.879 Yeah, great. 00:11:08.960 --> 00:11:10.879 Well, I mean, it's it's amazing, it's wonderful. 00:11:10.960 --> 00:11:16.000 You can imagine your friends seeing you in this car, imagine you know, turning on the lights and playing the radio. 00:11:16.080 --> 00:11:17.679 I mean, it doesn't have an engine. 00:11:18.320 --> 00:11:28.399 But I mean, you can take pictures and post them online and you know, roll it out of the garage and roll it back in, and like you wouldn't know. 00:11:29.200 --> 00:11:31.919 A car without an engine is no car. 00:11:32.720 --> 00:11:53.039 And Paul's making this argument that our lives and the use of the gifts, the the use of our things that we, the way we are made, the way that we are designed, and the use of that in the world without love pulls the heart out of our humanity because we were designed to do everything with the heart of God. 00:11:54.080 --> 00:12:02.080 And when we live that way, we are fulfilled, literally filled with God and overflow with God. 00:12:03.600 --> 00:12:13.120 And when we don't live that way, it doesn't matter what we do, make, build, etc., it's dust and ashes. 00:12:13.519 --> 00:12:17.440 Maybe it's big dust and ashes, maybe it's little dust and ashes, but it's dust and ashes. 00:12:17.679 --> 00:12:20.399 And so that's the part argument he's making in these verses. 00:12:20.720 --> 00:12:26.879 Um I'll just kind of quickly uh glance through a couple of the verses. 00:12:27.200 --> 00:12:40.159 He's he's he's he's comparing the gifts of tongues, prophecy, faith to love and a loveless existence of those things. 00:12:46.960 --> 00:12:47.440 Interesting. 00:12:47.519 --> 00:12:49.519 I mean he just used these superlatives. 00:12:51.200 --> 00:13:01.200 The uh the the idea that you could literally speak and be a translator for all men and angels, like better than C3PO. 00:13:01.360 --> 00:13:03.360 Like you know everything. 00:13:03.679 --> 00:13:06.720 If you if you don't have love, you're just a resounding gong. 00:13:06.879 --> 00:13:12.159 And they might have heard those gongs at pagan temples, they might have heard those gongs of uh coming to dinner. 00:13:12.240 --> 00:13:16.000 There are many things that that could have been, references that could have been, but basically you're just noise. 00:13:16.080 --> 00:13:17.440 You're literally noise. 00:13:18.960 --> 00:13:21.360 If I have the gift of prophecy, can fathom all things. 00:13:21.519 --> 00:13:23.679 Mysteries and knowledge is the whole sum of the universe. 00:13:23.840 --> 00:13:27.279 Mysteries meaning things that are not revealed, knowledge meaning things that are revealed. 00:13:27.440 --> 00:13:33.759 Basically, everything there is to know in the universe, I could know it, but if I don't deliver it, understand it, live it with love. 00:13:34.480 --> 00:13:35.759 It's nothing. 00:13:36.399 --> 00:13:41.039 If I give all I possess to the poor and my body to the flames, I love this. 00:13:41.200 --> 00:13:43.039 I think this is actually a famous story. 00:13:43.200 --> 00:13:55.519 So um, my view, take it for what it's worth, uh, there was a uh when Alexander the Great marched across the new world and he got to India, he he met a uh a Brahmin guru named Kalanos. 00:13:55.840 --> 00:14:02.960 Uh and Kalanos was an already an elderly man, and they had these interactions and discussions, and there's a lot of mutual respect there. 00:14:03.120 --> 00:14:20.639 And so um, as he was taking Kalanos back to Greece, he's by the time they got to Persia, he was in his 70s and he didn't weather the trip very well, and he got sick, and so Kalanos decided uh that he was an ascetic, and instead of kind of living an invalid life, that he would end his life. 00:14:20.720 --> 00:14:28.480 And this was a traditional virgin uh uh self-imolation is what they called it, is where you burn yourself on a funeral on your own funeral pyre. 00:14:28.720 --> 00:14:31.679 And Alexander tried to dissuade him, he would not be dissuaded. 00:14:31.759 --> 00:14:46.799 So what he did was Kalanos, of course, as a as a revered Brahmin sage, had received many expensive gifts from various kings and generals, and um he divested himself of all those things and uh very famously gave his horse to Lysimachus and other things to others. 00:14:46.960 --> 00:14:49.279 I mean, this is not legend, this is recorded. 00:14:49.440 --> 00:15:04.159 And so he gave away all of his gifts and then literally um burned himself on his own funeral pyre and was honored for his his stoic ascetic ability uh to just kind of take that, and he was honored and revered. 00:15:04.399 --> 00:15:09.759 And so uh it seems to me that that is very clearly what Paul is referring to there, to give away all your things. 00:15:09.840 --> 00:15:13.120 It was a well-known um uh thing to honor this person. 00:15:13.200 --> 00:15:23.120 And what he says is the honor was to him, it wasn't to the Lord who gave him that grace to do that, and so it gains nothing to do this. 00:15:23.360 --> 00:15:29.600 So, as a as a Christian in the world, we know that what we do for ourselves dies with us. 00:15:29.919 --> 00:15:50.000 So what is absolutely crazy about these verses is that God is introducing, Paul is introducing, the God is introducing through Paul this idea that God's love is the power behind all true bonds, true connection, true healing. 00:15:50.159 --> 00:15:53.759 And now he goes in to describe a few of those things. 00:15:56.559 --> 00:16:25.120 And as you hear these few things in verses four through seven, I love the words of uh Morris, one commentator, who said, It is a love for the utterly unworthy, a love that proceeds from a God who is love, a love lavished on others, whether they are worthy or not, it proceeds from the nature of the lover, not from any attractiveness in the beloved, which is again, it was it was shocking then, and it's still shocking now. 00:16:25.360 --> 00:16:35.919 And anyone who thinks that man is naturally loving has stolen that idea from the scriptures and doesn't realize how saturated they are with the Christian worldview. 00:16:36.159 --> 00:16:39.200 Because in the rest of the world, they know that's not true. 00:16:40.240 --> 00:16:42.879 Verses 4 to 7, some characteristics of love. 00:16:44.480 --> 00:16:45.600 Here we go. 00:16:45.840 --> 00:16:50.000 And by the way, uh it's not like, okay, we're gonna define love. 00:16:50.159 --> 00:16:53.279 Love is X, because love is, again, simple and complex. 00:16:53.360 --> 00:16:55.919 It's it's like saying, define God and give two examples. 00:16:56.080 --> 00:16:58.480 It's like there's a lot of layers to it. 00:16:58.559 --> 00:17:02.720 And so here's Paul's just pulling back some of the layers to show us, and some of those layers that go into it. 00:17:02.879 --> 00:17:04.319 1 John chapter 4. 00:17:04.480 --> 00:17:06.640 This is how God showed his love among us. 00:17:06.880 --> 00:17:09.680 He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 00:17:09.920 --> 00:17:12.960 This is love, not that we love God, as Will said, but that God loved us. 00:17:13.200 --> 00:17:15.440 He first loved us, and we only love him back. 00:17:15.519 --> 00:17:18.160 And he sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 00:17:18.319 --> 00:17:23.279 So we see in those verses in 1 John that love is about giving yourself for another's good. 00:17:23.440 --> 00:17:32.400 Love is consuming death with life, giving uh that Christ came and died as an atoning sacrifice that we might live before and to and forever with God. 00:17:33.279 --> 00:17:42.640 And again, possibly the most uniquely Christian element of love is that it is self-originating, not with us, but with God and God in us. 00:17:42.720 --> 00:17:56.720 And that's why it's so important that God does live in us and walk with us, because God, there's one source of life, one source of love in the universe, not humanity, not the universe, it is God. 00:17:57.759 --> 00:18:02.319 And so we'll see these uh this uh self-originating element coming up. 00:18:02.880 --> 00:18:05.839 Del Tackett gave us this definition a few years ago. 00:18:05.920 --> 00:18:12.640 Um, if you went through that study, love is the steadfast sacrificial zeal that seeks the true good of another. 00:18:12.799 --> 00:18:27.440 And I don't have time to kind of unpack all the parts of that definition, but love is the steadfast sacrificial zeal that seeks the true good of another, whether it's a spouse or a child or a friend or a neighbor or an enemy. 00:18:28.799 --> 00:18:30.799 So, how does it look in real life? 00:18:31.039 --> 00:18:35.680 Paul shines this light of God's love and breaks out the spectrum in the next few verses. 00:18:36.079 --> 00:18:37.119 Here he's he goes. 00:18:37.279 --> 00:18:38.720 Verse 4, patience. 00:18:39.119 --> 00:18:41.759 Love it never uh love is patient. 00:18:43.039 --> 00:18:48.720 Patience doesn't mean you just kind of wait patiently at the haircutter and just kind of smile and oh that's okay. 00:18:48.880 --> 00:18:49.680 No, patience. 00:18:49.839 --> 00:18:52.559 This is here means endures through. 00:18:52.720 --> 00:18:58.079 There's some negative uh force, and you endure through it. 00:18:58.319 --> 00:19:02.640 And you endure, in fact, injuries without retaliation is how Carson divines it. 00:19:02.960 --> 00:19:05.599 Patience isn't new natural, it's supernatural. 00:19:05.839 --> 00:19:13.119 Being patient with others, patient with yourself, even patient with God. 00:19:14.960 --> 00:19:23.759 To endure through when God leads and loves in ways that you do not expect or prefer. 00:19:24.160 --> 00:19:27.119 This is evidence of the power of God. 00:19:27.359 --> 00:19:29.119 And not only patient, but love is kind. 00:19:29.359 --> 00:19:31.680 Kindness is also kind of a slash gentleness. 00:19:32.240 --> 00:19:34.000 Okay, can I just speak to our men for a second? 00:19:34.160 --> 00:19:39.519 I think we're all sitting there going like love just sounds like you just need to be a soft, just be nice, just be a nice person. 00:19:40.559 --> 00:19:45.839 And no, um, no, love is robust, love has boundaries, love is strong. 00:19:46.000 --> 00:19:57.920 Uh it was uh Eric Little, you know, the uh the Scottish runner who used to talk about a muscular Christianity where um, and uh I'm gonna uh go back to Aristotle here, who talked about every virtue being a mean between two vices. 00:19:58.079 --> 00:20:06.559 So uh if you have, for example, gentleness, what you have is there's an excess and a deficiency. 00:20:06.720 --> 00:20:13.200 The excess is because gentleness isn't just softness, it's power with restraint. 00:20:13.359 --> 00:20:14.319 It's appropriate. 00:20:14.640 --> 00:20:24.880 So, you know, you may be at the doctor's office, and the doctor who comes in and who is gentle with your uh with your cracked pinky just reset a broken bone in the in the room before. 00:20:25.119 --> 00:20:29.599 Okay, so that it's not that the doctor can't handle it or just needs to be soft. 00:20:29.920 --> 00:20:33.440 They're being tender with you in your vulnerability. 00:20:33.680 --> 00:20:37.440 Strength with restraint and appropriate use of strength. 00:20:37.519 --> 00:20:38.400 That's gentleness. 00:20:38.559 --> 00:20:48.640 So the excess of strength is violence, and the deficiency of strength is passivity, but the appropriate virtue is gentleness. 00:20:51.599 --> 00:20:53.759 And that's what Paul is giving us. 00:20:56.160 --> 00:20:58.559 It is consuming death with life. 00:21:00.960 --> 00:21:07.119 Jesus healed the sick, he fed the hungry, he raised the dead, he made a whip of cords. 00:21:08.000 --> 00:21:10.480 When he fed the 5,000, no recorded thank you. 00:21:10.640 --> 00:21:11.119 He just did it. 00:21:11.200 --> 00:21:12.880 He was kind, he gave. 00:21:13.119 --> 00:21:17.599 He simply gave and left the results to God. 00:21:18.960 --> 00:21:22.960 Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy, it is generously supportive. 00:21:23.119 --> 00:21:29.839 This is the Greek grammar here, is as the uh it's the negative of the verb in 1231 that says eagerly desire spiritual gifts. 00:21:30.000 --> 00:21:34.000 So it's like you uh are eagerly desiring instead of what is good, what is wrong. 00:21:34.160 --> 00:21:40.079 I'm eagerly desiring not spiritual gifts, but maybe your stuff, your gifts, your life. 00:21:41.599 --> 00:21:46.000 Now I know we never do that, but just in case, he put it in there. 00:21:47.759 --> 00:21:52.240 I could probably sit down with every person here, and because I'm a human, I could find something to be envious of in your life. 00:21:52.319 --> 00:21:52.960 I could. 00:21:55.119 --> 00:21:57.920 Or I could just sit on social media and do it from home. 00:22:00.079 --> 00:22:03.759 But does that fan the flame of love for us or of envy? 00:22:04.960 --> 00:22:07.200 Your car has two sunroofs. 00:22:07.440 --> 00:22:09.519 My dog doesn't fetch the paper. 00:22:10.319 --> 00:22:15.119 And my kid isn't a black belt Harvard scholarship athlete entering the Navy SEALs. 00:22:16.559 --> 00:22:18.160 I'm a failure. 00:22:20.559 --> 00:22:23.599 According to Paul, Christians don't look at others. 00:22:24.319 --> 00:22:27.039 We can't look at others and wonder why did God make me not like that? 00:22:27.519 --> 00:22:29.359 Why did not God make me like that? 00:22:29.759 --> 00:22:32.079 God made you you for a reason. 00:22:32.720 --> 00:22:33.680 He makes no mistakes. 00:22:33.839 --> 00:22:34.799 He made you you. 00:22:34.880 --> 00:22:36.000 And only you can be you. 00:22:36.079 --> 00:22:40.319 Only you can fill the space you were meant to fill. 00:22:41.440 --> 00:22:42.079 Be you. 00:22:46.559 --> 00:22:48.640 It is not boast, it is not proud. 00:22:52.480 --> 00:22:53.920 A quick word on humility. 00:22:54.079 --> 00:22:59.200 Humility isn't running yourself down, denigrating yourself, comparing yourself negatively to others. 00:22:59.359 --> 00:23:00.480 Humility is just this. 00:23:00.640 --> 00:23:01.359 Seriously. 00:23:01.599 --> 00:23:03.279 Humility is just truth. 00:23:03.519 --> 00:23:04.880 It is the truth. 00:23:05.200 --> 00:23:12.880 You know, it said that the Old Testament law, which Moses wrote, says Moses was the most humble man on the face of the earth. 00:23:13.920 --> 00:23:16.160 Surely I was added by a later editor. 00:23:16.880 --> 00:23:19.759 You know, well, how could Moses be the most humble man if he was the greatest? 00:23:19.839 --> 00:23:21.359 It just seems like he would really struggle with pride. 00:23:21.440 --> 00:23:30.160 Maybe, but here's the thing the reason that Moses was the most humble man and the greatest of his time is that he wasn't comparing himself to other men. 00:23:30.559 --> 00:23:32.960 He was comparing himself to an infinite God. 00:23:34.000 --> 00:23:38.160 He spoke to God face to face, and he knew how little he was. 00:23:41.039 --> 00:23:42.799 How could he not be humble? 00:23:44.640 --> 00:23:53.039 In the perspective of the reality of things, knowing how awesome and holy and glorious and magnificent that God is. 00:23:54.640 --> 00:23:57.200 Maybe I'm a little bigger, maybe a little smaller than the next guy. 00:23:57.440 --> 00:23:58.640 That doesn't matter. 00:23:59.279 --> 00:24:00.799 Everything is from God. 00:24:01.200 --> 00:24:02.319 He made us this way. 00:24:02.559 --> 00:24:04.799 He gives one, he takes another. 00:24:06.079 --> 00:24:09.440 The Lord gives and the Lord takes away, says Joe, blessed be the name of the Lord. 00:24:10.400 --> 00:24:11.839 Let God decide. 00:24:12.799 --> 00:24:17.279 I mean, you can imagine two ants on the ground in your driveway deciding which ant is bigger. 00:24:17.359 --> 00:24:18.160 I think I'm a little bigger than you. 00:24:18.240 --> 00:24:18.960 I think a little bigger than you. 00:24:19.039 --> 00:24:22.640 And then you're standing over them both, going, Are you guys really arguing about this? 00:24:25.440 --> 00:24:29.359 And God is infinitely greater than we are. 00:24:30.240 --> 00:24:34.319 There's a much bigger difference between us and God than there is in us and those ants. 00:24:34.559 --> 00:24:36.480 And yet we think about it, don't we? 00:24:37.119 --> 00:24:43.680 So may God fill us with humility, simply the truth, the perspective to know that He is glorious and wonderful, and let God decide. 00:24:43.759 --> 00:24:48.559 And then we just give ourselves to the people, to love the people in front of us, whoever they are. 00:24:50.799 --> 00:24:55.359 Louis said it this way that humility is not thinking less of yourself, it's just thinking of yourself less. 00:24:55.680 --> 00:24:57.279 Thinking, what is God doing in this moment? 00:24:57.359 --> 00:24:58.960 How can I serve him and the people? 00:25:00.160 --> 00:25:01.599 Love is not rude. 00:25:05.680 --> 00:25:08.799 Skip over that because that's hopefully pretty obvious. 00:25:09.200 --> 00:25:12.000 Love is not self-seeking, it's unselfish. 00:25:12.880 --> 00:25:15.279 We are fiercely devoted to our wants, aren't we? 00:25:16.240 --> 00:25:17.039 Love is unselfish. 00:25:17.200 --> 00:25:19.359 It's not easily angered, it's peaceful. 00:25:19.839 --> 00:25:22.400 Love keeps no record of wrongs, it's forgiving. 00:25:22.640 --> 00:25:25.359 When someone offends you, do you get historical? 00:25:26.079 --> 00:25:29.519 You always could God say the same about us? 00:25:29.839 --> 00:25:30.480 He could. 00:25:31.279 --> 00:25:32.880 But love doesn't keep a grudge. 00:25:33.519 --> 00:25:35.119 Are there boundaries around abuse? 00:25:35.200 --> 00:25:37.359 Yes, that's another talk for another day. 00:25:38.799 --> 00:25:41.599 This one is about letting go. 00:25:43.680 --> 00:25:46.319 Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. 00:25:46.480 --> 00:25:47.599 It is sincere. 00:25:50.160 --> 00:25:50.960 Skipping down. 00:25:51.119 --> 00:25:54.079 Verse 8 to 13, the end the last section of the chapter there. 00:25:57.759 --> 00:26:00.319 So we've seen the necessity of love. 00:26:00.400 --> 00:26:07.039 That if you take love away from the gifts, they literally are now no thing. 00:26:08.160 --> 00:26:18.400 We've seen some characteristics and traits of love, how it works in real life on the ground, which was shocking then and it should be now. 00:26:18.799 --> 00:26:24.480 That it gives, it is self-originated in the giver who is in us and overflows to others through us. 00:26:25.599 --> 00:26:35.200 And now we're talking in verses 18, 8 to 13 about the permanence of love, contrasting love and the charismata or the gifts. 00:26:37.200 --> 00:26:47.839 There's this kind of an urban legend in the Christian church that faith and hope will cease before eternity and that we'll only carry love in. 00:26:47.920 --> 00:26:48.559 And I do get that. 00:26:48.640 --> 00:26:50.640 And there's a sense in which that is true. 00:27:00.160 --> 00:27:04.799 But I like the way that Carson talks about it. 00:27:05.119 --> 00:27:06.880 And I'm just going to quote him here. 00:27:08.079 --> 00:27:14.640 He says, What about the permanence of all three? 00:27:14.799 --> 00:27:18.319 It doesn't say these three remain for the moment. 00:27:18.480 --> 00:27:21.680 It says these three abide, but the greatest is love. 00:27:21.759 --> 00:27:24.720 So if they abide and the greatest is love, there's two things there. 00:27:24.880 --> 00:27:26.079 How do they abide? 00:27:26.720 --> 00:27:28.480 And then why is the greatest love? 00:27:28.640 --> 00:27:29.519 Quickly. 00:27:30.319 --> 00:27:36.960 Will we stop looking forward in anticipation to what is ahead once we have begun to enjoy the new heaven and the new earth? 00:27:37.599 --> 00:27:38.799 Consider faith. 00:27:39.039 --> 00:27:41.839 It is true in one sense that faith will be displaced by sight. 00:27:41.920 --> 00:27:43.440 We will see face to face. 00:27:45.759 --> 00:27:56.640 But there is another sense in which faith is simply thankful trusting God, deep appreciation for him, committed servant service to him. 00:27:57.359 --> 00:28:09.200 Will there be any time in the next 50 billion years, if I may speak of eternity, in the categories of time, during which the very basis of my presence in the celestial courts will be something other than faith in the grace of God? 00:28:10.559 --> 00:28:30.880 And so, yes, there will be sight, but there will be faith in the glorious, wonderful, all-powerful God who is love and in whom there is no shifting shadow, and who continually feeds and nourishes us with the tree of life only. 00:28:32.400 --> 00:28:34.480 Beautiful, wonderful. 00:28:37.440 --> 00:28:54.160 And so Paul is kind of defining love now at the end as in its intrinsic superiority in contrast to gifts, because the charismata are the gifts like prophecy, like you'll we know in part, so we prophesy about things, or we have a word of knowledge about you, but then we'll see face to face. 00:28:54.319 --> 00:28:58.160 And when he says, uh we see now dimly as in a mirror, and then we'll see face to face. 00:28:58.319 --> 00:29:01.039 I mean, we think, you know, look, you see pretty good in a mirror, you know what I mean? 00:29:01.519 --> 00:29:05.599 Um, but uh in those days, mirrors were made of brass. 00:29:05.680 --> 00:29:15.839 And actually, Corinthians are really appropriate uh for the Corinthians because their Corinthian brass was famous in the ancient world for being of the purest sort. 00:29:16.079 --> 00:29:29.759 And so uh Pliny the Elder, in fact, in his natural history, which was first century work, probably AD 77, give or take, Corinthian bronze, I'm quoting quoting Pliny, Corinthian bronze is valued before silver and almost even before gold. 00:29:30.000 --> 00:29:37.359 And so uh even the the Greco-Roman world recognized the beauty and the superiority of Corinthian brass, which formed their mirrors. 00:29:37.440 --> 00:29:41.039 And even in those mirrors, you could still only see dimly. 00:29:41.599 --> 00:29:43.680 But then we shall see face to face. 00:29:43.920 --> 00:29:49.839 Then we shall see gloriously and relate to as and know fully as I am fully known. 00:29:50.000 --> 00:29:51.759 So here's the text Love never fails. 00:29:51.920 --> 00:29:53.440 Where there are prophecies, they will cease. 00:29:53.519 --> 00:29:56.160 Where there are tongues, they will be stilled, and where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 00:29:56.240 --> 00:30:00.319 And he doesn't mean like knowledge will pass away, he means like a word of knowledge, knowing something you didn't know before. 00:30:00.480 --> 00:30:06.240 Again, the outworking of the spiritual gifts, because if knowledge all passed away, we wouldn't know it, right? 00:30:06.480 --> 00:30:15.039 So, for we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, in other words, the new heavens and the new earth, what is in part disappears when I was a child. 00:30:15.200 --> 00:30:24.000 In other words, kind of like now, um, I talk like a child, I thought like a child, I reason like a child, but when I became a man and in the kingdom, I put the ways of childhood behind me. 00:30:24.160 --> 00:30:28.000 Now we see only uh reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face. 00:30:28.160 --> 00:30:32.160 Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. 00:30:32.319 --> 00:30:34.079 And so when will the perfect come? 00:30:34.400 --> 00:30:36.880 Was it the advent of the church in Acts 2? 00:30:37.039 --> 00:30:37.920 No, I don't think so. 00:30:38.079 --> 00:30:42.880 Was it the advent of the ceiling of the canon in about the uh third, fourth century? 00:30:43.119 --> 00:30:43.359 No. 00:30:43.519 --> 00:30:44.640 I think it is eternity. 00:30:44.720 --> 00:30:47.119 It is when we will then see face to face. 00:30:47.279 --> 00:30:50.000 That is the perfect he's talking about. 00:30:51.200 --> 00:30:56.160 But if all three are permanent eternal virtues, why then is love said to be the greatest of the three? 00:30:56.319 --> 00:30:57.920 And again, I'm gonna go back to Carson. 00:30:58.000 --> 00:30:59.599 I sorry I have to like rely on my friends. 00:30:59.759 --> 00:31:01.440 Carson's still alive, too, actually, by the way. 00:31:01.519 --> 00:31:02.559 It's not even dead. 00:31:02.720 --> 00:31:04.480 Um, and I'm I'm already quoting him. 00:31:04.640 --> 00:31:08.480 Wit, I mean, he's probably the greatest living theologian uh in the English-speaking world. 00:31:08.559 --> 00:31:10.799 Um, but here he is. 00:31:10.960 --> 00:31:20.240 Um there is a hint in this chapter of why love is said to be the greatest, even if all three will be eternal. 00:31:22.559 --> 00:31:24.960 Faith appears in verse 2 and hope in verse 7. 00:31:25.119 --> 00:31:30.559 Paul in verse 2 can imagine exercising faith without love, but not love without faith. 00:31:31.039 --> 00:31:38.480 And in verse 7, hope is a part of a constellation of virtues that contribute to love as various colors contribute to white light. 00:31:38.640 --> 00:31:42.640 In some sense, therefore, love is the all-embracing virtue. 00:31:42.799 --> 00:31:51.039 One can imagine other waves, other waves, ways, sorry, of setting out the revelations that bind faith, hope, and love together. 00:31:51.119 --> 00:31:57.440 But in Paul's exposition, love is foundational, even of the virtues that characterize God's people in eternity. 00:31:57.519 --> 00:32:00.160 And that's why the greatest of the virtues is love. 00:32:00.319 --> 00:32:03.680 Moreover, the scriptures strongly insist that God is love. 00:32:03.839 --> 00:32:15.680 Yet it's difficult to imagine how they could have said that God is faith or God is hope, and that may be, uh, that God is love, may be John's expression, not Paul's, but the conclusion is the same that the greatest is love. 00:32:16.319 --> 00:32:21.839 And so we live in this, you know, in this now, not yet, the fulfillment and will be fulfilled. 00:32:22.000 --> 00:32:30.559 And of all the glories to come, the most enduring, the most foundational, the most all-encompassing is love. 00:32:30.720 --> 00:32:36.640 And not just squishy feeling, real, robust character of God. 00:32:37.200 --> 00:32:49.920 No excess, no deficiency, strength, courage, grace given, the steadfast sacrificial zeal that seeks the true good of another. 00:32:50.160 --> 00:32:52.079 And indeed God does. 00:32:56.880 --> 00:33:06.640 And can I just make this case as we uh close for um for the the beauty and the strength and the power of God's love? 00:33:06.960 --> 00:33:23.599 If we truly loved the way God intended, but according to this pattern, while the world loves to laugh at the Bible and talk about how narrow it is, if we did this, if we lived this way, can you imagine that world? 00:33:25.839 --> 00:33:27.920 Human trafficking would cease today. 00:33:28.240 --> 00:33:33.519 Everyone, all the slaves would be returned to their homes, clothed, fed, cared for. 00:33:34.319 --> 00:34:03.519 Because they would recognize the image of God in these humans, that they are not chattel, they're not just beasts, they're not animals, they're not Darwinian whatever to be dominated, that they are humans in the image of God, and that we should show patience and kindness, generosity and care for them. 00:34:05.599 --> 00:34:11.119 Workplace oppression would cease because honor would be the rule. 00:34:12.639 --> 00:34:30.880 Honor, not because you want to be honorable and die virtuously like Kalanus, but because our God has made us this way in his image, and we are most fulfilled and satisfied when we live in his image. 00:34:31.679 --> 00:34:38.079 And so also is this person in front of us, and we would never because God would never mistreat us. 00:34:38.880 --> 00:34:42.079 And isn't that that's the the twist, isn't it? 00:34:43.039 --> 00:35:00.719 Love is patient, love is kind, it is not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, because God is patient, God is kind, God does not envy, God does not boast, God is not proud, God is not rude, God is not easily angered, he keeps no record of wrongs, he is forgiving, he is generous, he is sacrificial. 00:35:01.599 --> 00:35:05.519 And here's the great gift of God to us. 00:35:06.079 --> 00:35:29.440