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We have been working uh through 1 Corinthians as we've talked about before, and it's interesting that when I talk to people who are not Christians, and maybe you're sitting in the room today and you're not a Christian, you're not a believer, maybe someone brought you along, maybe you're exploring faith, maybe uh you're still questioning it, or maybe you've been around church for a long time, but you really haven't chosen to make that step of put putting your faith and trust in Jesus Christ. That's that's where you are. Um we're glad you're here. I mean, you're welcome to be here, and we want you to know this is a good place for you to be because you can learn, you can grow, and we're not gonna make you do anything as if we could anyway. Um, but we want to say we respect you for even being here. But I would say to you, uh, I've talked to many unbelievers, non-Christians, and uh one of the things that I've asked is do you know any Bible verses? Do you know any scriptures? And uh I'd be curious what your thoughts are on this. I'm not gonna ask you to speak it out loud, but curious if you if you if you uh knew what some of the verses are that I get. One of them, it's never in context, and they don't know where it's found, but it's from Matthew chapter 7, and it says, do not judge. That's number one I hear, okay? When I'm out in the in the non-Christians talking to unbelievers, it says, do not judge. I know there's a verse in the Bible about that somewhere, right? Like, well, that's Matthew 7, but the context is a little different than what you're probably thinking, but I won't get into that right now, um, because I want you to know Jesus first. All right. So, but bottom line is that's probably one of the most popular, common verses you hear from unbelievers. Uh, another one that's it's it's brought out a lot, uh John 3.16, because it's, you know, you see in sports venues. Another one, Psalm 23, because it's read at funerals. Even people who don't know Jesus, uh, people who are not even believers, they still read Psalm 23 at a funeral because it's real pretty, it's poetic, it's it's a beautiful passage of scripture. And if you ever read it in the King James Version, it's like extra beautiful, like just those words and these and thous and thighs, and you know, the shepherd, and the Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want this thing, you know. Um, but anyway, who talks like that, right? But anyway, so it's a beautiful passage. But one of the ones that comes up a lot is actually 1 Corinthians chapter 13, which is where we're at today. We're in 1 Corinthians 13. And you know where I hear it the most? Weddings, right? No surprises there because it's the love chapter. It's a chapter all about love, and it's been deemed the love chapter because as you read through it, it's not that it actually defines love as much as it describes love. It describes it and it gives us a very clear understanding at least of some of the tactile, tangible aspects of what love is, right? And how it how it works. And we're going to talk about that today. But I think it's interesting that, again, this passage is talked about or read in marriage ceremonies and wedding, which is, by the way, it's it's appropriate. I just want you to understand that's not the context of the passage. Uh, meaning that if you actually know what's going on in the first 12 chapters of 1 Corinthians, when you get to 1 Corinthians 13, you wouldn't go, oh, this is about marriage. Because even though you can apply the principles of this passage to marriage, that's completely safe. It's okay, it's good. Because if you're patient, you're kind, and some of these other things we're going to talk about, that will benefit you in your marriage. Amen, men? Okay? All right, so we want to do those things. Um, but that's not primarily the focus of this passage. It's not about marriage. Uh, it is actually Paul writing to a church that's messed up, and he's trying to correct them on some things. And when you very first start reading this passage, let's just be honest, it sounds beautiful. I'm gonna read it to us here in a second. It's a beautiful passage, it's an amazing passage. And when you start to read it, you kind of get caught up in it. It's just so beautiful, the language uh and some of the things that he says, like, yeah, yeah. You know, I mean, again, you don't even have to be a Christian to resonate with what he's saying when he talks about this idea of love. But I hate to tell you this, but I want to burst your bubble a little bit today. Because Paul was not intending this to be this beautiful, eloquent passage that made everybody have warm fuzzies. In fact, it's a very difficult rebuke, very harsh, hard rebuke to this church that was struggling. Okay? So here's what I want to do. I want to read 1 Corinthians 13. If you have a Bible, there's actually some under the chairs around you, some little black Bibles. And if you don't own a Bible, by the way, we'd we'd love to give that to you as a gift. Feel free to take it. Or you can even go to the Lost and Found and get a really nice Bible, probably. It's in there. It might have somebody else's name on it. You can just scratch it out. It's great. But we get lots of good Bibles around here, okay? So, but we'd love to give you one, okay? Might even be one of our pastors. I don't know. Um here we go. 1 Corinthians 13. I'm I'm coming off vacation, so I apologize ahead of time. Um verse one. If I speak human or angelic languages, but do not have love, I am a sounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I donate all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body in order to boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, it is not conceited, it does not act improperly, is not selfish, is not provoked, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, it believes all things, it hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends, but as for prophecies, they will come to an end, and as for language, they will cease, and as for knowledge, it will come to an end. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will come to an end. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, and I reasoned like a child. But when I became a man, I put aside childish things. For now we see indistinctly as in a mirror, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully, as I am fully known. Now these three remain faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love. Isn't that an awesome passage? What an amazing section of scripture. It's no wonder it's read at weddings. It's no wonder that people love it because it has such a great word, language, phrasing, and just the way it flows, and just love the way that it sounds, right? Like I'll use the word love about love, right? Love the way it sounds. But here's the thing again, this is not a passage about warm fuzzies and about how it can make you feel kind of caught up in the transcendency of it. The idea here is that it actually is a rebuke. It's a rebuke to these Corinthian people. You see, let me remind us, in case you haven't been along for the journey so far through the book of 1 Corinthians, I want to make sure that you know what we're talking about. Uh, Corinth was a messed up place, a very messed up place. Um, in fact, there's a lot of similarities between Corinth and our modern-day Austin, Texas, some of the other major cities, port cities in particular, because we're not a port city, but that's what Corinth was, a port city. And it was a city that the Romans had set up and established because they knew of the potential just geographically where it was, uh, made it very efficient and effective for porting goods from east to west and west to east. And you could take your goods four miles and go across the little the little section of land there and get to uh the other side and then put it on a ship and you could, you know, ship it all over the place and make a lot of money. Uh because it had been destroyed before the first before Jesus comes along and then rebuilt by the Romans, all the people who lived there were transient. Uh they weren't people who had uh had lived there a long time. In fact, there weren't any long-term citizens there. Uh there was a lot of diversity amongst the crowd of people that were there. And those people were there were very disconnected, and they were very much so focused on themselves. In fact, you would say the most talented, most gifted, most entrepreneurial, spirit-oriented people on the planet at the time probably went to Corinth to try to make it, to try to make it happen. A lot of young people, a lot of people showed up and said, This is a place where I can make a name for myself. This is a place where I can become something. I'm gonna become this person who has money and resources because there's a lot of opportunities in Corinth. But the problem was that not only did you have a lot of opportunities, you had a lot of pagan worship, and you had, which included or led to a whole lot of sexual immorality. In fact, in its day and age, some of you guys remember this way back when we started this passage, they coined a term for Corinth called to Corinthianize, which meant that you were basically an immoral person without integrity, without character, and definitely involved in sexual immorality. That was pretty much the norm. In fact, every night, as it would get dark, a thousand temple prostitutes would come out from the temple of Aphrodite and into the city streets to be a part of worship as they did these sexual acts with people, and it was all part of the culture in Corinth. So it was a pretty messed up place. And when Paul goes there, he didn't really go there with like excited high hopes of seeing God do some great things. In fact, he had to be kind of coaxed there. In fact, Acts even tells us that when he went, um, or you hadn't even gotten there yet, that literally God had to send a messenger to him to encourage him and say, Hey, Paul, it's okay, buddy. I mean, I know you've already been beaten, I know you've already been stoned, I know you've already been messed up with from these other people who've kind of hurt you. He said, But it's okay. You can do this, Paul. Okay? I'm gonna be with you, I'm gonna carry you through this. He needed a little pep talk. If Apostle Paul needed a pep talk, there's something going on here, right? Because this is a guy who's done a lot of things, endured a lot of hardship for the sake of the gospel. And yet that's exactly what we see is that he endures a lot of things. And he goes there with a little bit of fear and intrepidation. We talked about this early in the passage, early in the in this series. And when he showed up, he's like, I didn't come with wise or persuasive words. In fact, I came with a lot of fear and trembling. That's his exact words. So he shows up on the scene. This is a messed up place. But guess what? God loves to take messed up places and do beautiful things. And so in Corinth, this place with all this sexual immorality, all these people that are like all about themselves, going for the gusto, going for their own glory, he God begins to bring salvation to people there. Now, there was a very gifted, very talented, very unique place in the world at that time. There's some similarities to Austin. I think that there's some similarities in that we've got a lot of gifted and talented people in our city, in this space, and it's influencing other people and cities around the world. But that was going on, and as they began to become Christians, as they began to become followers of Jesus, as they were redeemed, rescued, whatever language you want to put to that, um, it was a beautiful thing, but it was also a messy thing. Because we all know that when people's lives are transformed by the grace of God, it does not mean that you automatically stop struggling with sin, stop addictions, stop issues that you had previous to your conversion. Right? People who come to faith in Jesus, sometimes there's an erratical, like immediate, I don't want any more of what I was doing, I want to follow Jesus. But then sometimes over time, habits creep back in, or they're still learning. Like, what does it look like to actually follow Jesus? I mean, there's some of you in this room that part of what's offensive about the gospel and about spiritual maturity is that it doesn't happen instantaneously. And that, so if you come to faith and you're like in your adulthood years, which by the way, you know that 80% of people who come to faith come to faith before 18. Why? Cement hasn't dried yet. As you get older, the pride starts to really creep in. You're like, I can't give my life to Jesus. I'm too old for that. I've already walked this way for so long. I can't turn my back on this way of life, this way of thinking, this worldview. Now that would be like, you know, like betraying myself. But literally what happens is as people come to faith, they're learning how to operate in a new way of thinking, a new system, a new salvation. And they have to grow up. And so it's a messy process. And as a result, when you talk, look at what Paul's writing to Corinth, he's dealing with a bunch of junk. A bunch of sinful behavior, a bunch of sinful habits. And that gives us a good backdrop to understand 1 Corinthians 13 and why it was a bombshell. Why it wasn't this beautiful passage that was like, oh, and when you stand at the wedding altars, read this to each other, and it's going to be a beautiful, amazing message about love and how it's patient and it's kind. Like Paul is saying, no, guys, listen, you have missed it. You have missed the boat. You are, you are, you are not going in the way of God's plan. And here's why, because at the core of Christianity, we have to understand that if we want to know what the faith of Christian faith is all about, we have to understand love. We have to understand love. If we want to know what the Christian faith is all about, we we must understand love. Um let me say it this way. I hope you know that the Christian faith that I proclaim, that I I follow personally and believe that the Bible teaches us, okay, not some of the different Christian faiths that are proclaimed and messages that go out that are all about me and that are all about making your life better, and how that if you just follow Jesus, everything gets great, it's awesome. Uh that's not the Christian message. Christian message is also not a message of rules, like don't do this and do this, and then you're you're you're good. Um, in fact, Jesus didn't come to die just so that we would become good people. He came to die because he wanted to restore a broken relationship between us as humans and God, our creator. He wanted to make that relationship right and to restore that, to reconcile that. That's why 2 Corinthians 5.21 has this beautiful way of saying that God made him who knew no sin to become sin for us, so that in him, Jesus, we might become the righteousness of God. What a beautiful passage. It talks about this exchange process. So see, Jesus doesn't want us to just be a good person. People may have this misconception that Christianity is all about just being a good person. No, actually, it's about dead people, people who are separated from God coming to life in Christ and becoming new creations, new creatures, children of God, loved by God, saved and rescued, not because of what we've done, but because of what he did for us. That's completely different. I'm not earning my way here. I don't get any brownie points because I'm preaching and teaching in a church. You see, it's only because Jesus Christ died for my sin on the cross that I have any hope of salvation, and it's the same for you. We're all on the level playing field. That being said, to understand this Christian faith, we have to get to the core of love. We have to understand love because that's really what it's about. It's not just what we do or or uh don't do, it's about why we do it anyway. It's about getting to what drives us, what is our what is the motivation, what is the under under the hood of our life that's really propelling us forward in our behavior. It's much bigger than just following again a set of rules and checking the box saying, I'm a good Christian because I did these things. I read my Bible, I prayed, I told somebody about the gospel. Those are good things. But why? And we're gonna talk about that today. You see, as we go back to the passage, I want to break it into three parts. I'm gonna break it into three parts because this passage we could preach on it for weeks. Okay? We're not going to. So y'all be glad. But we are gonna preach on it today, and we're gonna try to cover this passage in one Sunday, so pray for me. And we're gonna look, we're gonna look at this in three different sections that kind of speaks to this idea of love. And hopefully this will help all of us walk away with a better understanding of the core of Christianity. The first thing you notice that Paul says is he speaks to this messed up church in Corinth that's all about themselves, that now has become Christians, and there are some young Christians coming to faith, and it's messy, but he's speaking into them and he's giving them instruction. He says this he says, If I speak human or angelic languages, but do not have love, I am a sounding gong or a clanging symbol. I'm a sounding gong or a clanging symbol is what I am. If I do these great gift things, operate in these gifts without love. So on the very first verse of this chapter, Paul's showing them that you can operate in giftedness apart from love, right? You can actually do this for the wrong reason. And he's saying that if I do that, I'm a resounding gong clinging symbol. I thought about bringing some cymbals this morning and banging them, you know, for you guys. Y'all would love that, right? But I know my wife would not appreciate that. Probably the nervous system was shut down at that point. But here's the thing we hear this image, and Paul's trying to make it very clear that when you take these gifts and you operate outside of love, it is annoying. It's very annoying because it's all about you. Remember the first week we said that gifts are about how do we help others, how do we serve others, how do we bless others, how do we give Jesus the glory and benefit others through building them up? But when gifts become about you, it's annoying. Anybody know those people that are just, I mean, you don't have to elbow anybody, but you know, you know what I'm saying? People who like, they just seem like the whole world revolves around them in their mind. And when we do that as Christians, as we do it as Christ followers, when we become all about ourselves, we become very annoying. It's an annoyance. Um, my son, who I love dearly, um, is a percussionist. He loves to play percussion. He's not had any formal lessons, so he's just learned. And learning means painful. Um, and so he just bangs on everything. Bangs on everything. And we were in Chicago this last week on the last day of our trip, and there on the side in the corner was a group of guys, four guys, and they're playing on buckets with drumsticks, and they were awesome. And I got a cool video of it, I won't show it to you this morning. But my son was mesmerized. He's standing there on the corner, and he's just like, I mean, his job was down here. He was just like watching them. He was like, you know, it was awesome. But my son, like, he loves to bang on stuff, and I'm gonna be honest, sometimes it's annoying. And we get home, first thing he does, he runs and grabs a bucket, grabs his drumsticks, and heads outside. And he's out there, you know, like he's learning like trying to practice some of the things that they're doing. Hey, I think he's gonna get good at it eventually. But and it was it wasn't actually terrible, but my neighbors come running out. What's going on? Like the thing is like a machine gun, like some car engine trouble. It's like you know, like what's going on? They're like trying to figure it all out. Listen, uh point being, and I think about just not even just this clinging gong or sounding symbol, this whole thing, but just think about the annoyance of some things sometimes. Like when I think about gifts being used outside of God's purpose and his intent, they're annoying. And without being cultivated and developed and matured, they're annoying. Okay. And Paul's making that point. By the way, some commentators also believe that what Paul's driving at here is that in pagan worship, when you showed up to these temples, and there were a lot of them around, they would actually clang a symbol and they would have this big gong, dong, you know. And then that was like the awe moment whenever you begin the worship to their gods. And Paul's literally saying that when you worship God through using your gifts without love, it's as if you're pagan worship. You're participating in pagan worship, you're just doing your thing about you because really all pagan worship is about you. But Christianity is about Jesus. It's about Jesus, it's about following Jesus, it's not about meeting some, again, list of rules or worshiping loud enough or singing hard enough or praying intently enough. It's about Jesus. And so we want to see that in our worship. And Paul was definitely trying to make sure they understood. In fact, he drives this point. This is why I says it's a bombshell, okay? Because in verse 2, he says something that's very, very offensive. He says, if I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains, that sounds like pretty cool stuff to have. I mean, knowledge, wisdom, faith, ability to prophesy. He says, but if I do not have love, I am nothing. I'm a spiritual nothing. I am a spiritual nothing if I do not have love. This is driving this point home again, that love is at the core of our belief. That love is a preeminent. Love is a preeminent. That it is it is more important than the gifts. Way more. Not even not even a contest here. It's way more important than the gifts. I would even say there's some applications practically in this text before we move on. He says, You, I think in a sense, it's it's like those of you that are gifted, those of you who have gifts, and there's some of you in this room who are very gifted. There's some of you who have the ability to communicate, there's some ability to sing, uh, you have the ability to think and to reason, uh, you have the ability to lead others, you're a good influencer of others. And he says, listen, if you have gifts, if you have these gifts and abilities, but you don't have love, you miss it. Right? What good is that? I mean, in fact, the more mature we become as a believer, the more you're aware that life without love is pointless. Even if you have the nicest of nice stuff, even if you have all that life can offer, even if you have the biggest house, you go on the biggest vacations, you have all these experiences, but you don't have love, you find yourself hollow and empty, wanting. Lacking. That's that's biblical. That's what God tells us. Because only love can minister and meet the deepest needs of our hearts. And so if I try to find my worth and my value based on my gifting, like by trying to be a good enough preacher, like first off, that's straight up foolish.

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But it's

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Not going to lead to what I think it's going to lead to. In fact, it's going to be that resounding gong, clanging symbol. Giftedness is not where we find our worth and our value and our acceptance and our identity. And if it is, we're going to be painfully aware of that soon. Maybe you've already gotten to that point. But there's also another group of people in this room that need to hear something today, and that's for those of you who don't think you're very gifted. These are the folks who it's pride in a reverse way, where you're always talking about how you don't have any gifts, you don't have anything to offer, you don't have any abilities, you're just not, you're just not a person who has a lot to bring to the table. And I would say to you, love is more important than gifting. And in fact, let me say this as strongly as I can this morning. I would dare say that the most spiritual person, the most spiritually mature person in this room might be the least gifted in this room. The person who doesn't have the capacity to speak eloquently or to sing beautifully or to lead others with great influence. Because I think sometimes when you are gifted, you look to yourself instead of God. In fact, you can tend to look to yourself, to find your worth and your identity and what you can do for God rather than seeing God is the source of all that you need. And I would say that there's probably some of you in this room this morning, you just need to hear. You don't feel gifted, but you are still valuable to the kingdom of God, and you're still valuable to God Himself personally. You're valuable, you're lucky. And so don't think for a second that because you may not feel gifted, that you're not important. Because that is not the truth. In fact, character, we said this earlier on in the series, um, remembering that uh it's not spiritual gifts that determine maturity or exemplar or show maturity, demonstrate maturity. It's spiritual fruit that shows spiritual maturity. So there's some of you in the room I've said earlier that might not be believers. You've not put your trust in Jesus. You're still either trying to do salvation projects by being a good enough person, um, or maybe you just haven't quite come to a place where you even would acknowledge that Jesus Christ died on the cross for your sins, or that it's even real, or any of this stuff is real, and that's okay. But let me just tell you what I already said to be true for us as believers is true for you as an unbeliever. And that is that you're not going to find life outside of God. It's not there. You can seek it, you can pursue it, you can you can go after it, but you will find it's not there. Yes, God gifts people who are not believers. I mean, aren't we thankful for that, right? Gifts people that are not believers with talents and abilities and skill sets because he's just gracious. I mean, life would be really terrible if unbelievers and non-Christians didn't have gifts as well. There's great counselors who are gifted, there's great uh there's great communicators that are gifted, there's great actors, there's great musicians that are gifted, uh, all these things, right? But just again, being gifted by God in these ways doesn't necessarily mean, in fact, it doesn't imply at all that there is actual awareness of God and his love and your real purpose, your real meaning, the real point of why you even are taking a breath right now in this moment. Because you were created for God's glory, not your own. I was created for God's glory, not my own. It's personally created for the person and work of Jesus. It's awesome. But love is not only preeminent, it is practical. Now, our culture uses the word love a lot, right? And I said earlier that if you were to hear this passage uh at a marriage, it doesn't necessarily mean that people in that marriage or in that ceremony are actually Christians. They just might like the way this passage sounds. But love is not just this feel-good thing. It's not just this romantic thing, it's not just this thing this ooey-gooey feeling, right? Now, I would actually tell you that feeling is a part of it. Don't think that it's not. We're not gonna pendulum swing over here and say, oh no, feeling's never a part of love. In fact, I would tell you today that what the Bible teaches us is that God actually has affection for us. He has affection for us, but that drives him to action. Affection that drives to action, commitment, sacrificial commitment at that, right? And so in our lives, we need to know that we are working this thing out as we understand God's great love for us that is not just an affection, but it's an action, and therefore our love should not just be an affection, but an action. And in this passage, Paul gives, beginning in verse 4, working all the way through seven, 15 different phrases to talk about what love really is. And the first part of this section, in this practical nature of love, is it describes that. I told you it doesn't define it, but it does describe it and even personifies it, is that um you'll you'll notice some words that if you've read 1 Corinthians, they actually point back to previous chapters in Corinthians. So when he says love is not boastful or proud or not envy, he's actually pointing back to things he's already been getting on to them about. Right? So these are not new things. Uh he's been addressing them through this letter, which by the way, I hope you guys know this, but you know, these letters were read publicly out loud to the church. And so as they were hearing this letter, they would have started picking up on these themes and start hearing these words and this repetition in the letter. And so Paul says to them, he says, Listen, I want to read it again for our benefit. Because it is a beautiful passage, but it's also really, really challenging because basically what it sounds like is he's saying, You got to be perfect if you want to be a person who's truly loving. Love is patient, love is kind, love does not envy, it is not boastful, it is not conceited, it does not act improperly, it is not selfish, it is not provoked, it does not keep a record of wrongs, love finds no joy in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love the meat of that passage. But I feel incredibly challenged when I read that. So when I say I love my wife, is any of that true? Because you don't determine your love by what just comes out of your mouth, you determine your love by your actions and your commitments and your follow-through, right? So when I stood at the altar, I said this is not a passage about love, but there's implications here that when I stood at the altar with my wife and I made a covenant before God and before the people that were there that day in Lubbock, Texas, celebrating our marriage 17 years ago, I remember that in that moment I am saying some things there is no possible way I can do without God. There is no way. Can't do these things. I know I want to be patient, I want to be kind, I want to be good, I want to be generous, I want to, I want to have a record of wrongs. I, you know, I want these things, but God, without your grace, I am done for. This is gonna be a total train wreck. I'm not even gonna make it out of this room before I blow it on one of these things. I mean, I've had couples periodically, they'll uh they'll say, Hey, uh, Nick, we want you to do our wedding. Can we write our own vows? That's kind of become a more common, more popular thing in recent days, it seems like, and kind of ditch the traditionals, or maybe kind of combine them up or mix and match or whatever. And I'm like, Yeah, sure, that's great. And then they'll give me this list of vows. And I'm looking at it and I'm like, so unrealistic. Like, these guys definitely don't know what marriage is about yet. They they, I think that's when you're still convinced that the med the wedding day is like the best day instead of like the launch pad day, right? They don't still understand that the wedding day is just the start to what really like what's really gonna happen in this relationship. And and so I'm like, I want to be really kind and gracious with them and say, look, this is these are beautiful things you're saying. Can I just encourage you to make sure that you somehow remind yourself you're gonna need God to do any of these things? Because without God, you are done. I mean, these might sound beautiful, everybody might cry. You might even cry and choke up and not get through it, but you're not gonna do this without God. I don't want to laugh in your face, but I do. You know, you know that kind of thing. We gotta grow. I mean, I'm just gonna pick on a few of the things here, but you know, love is patient. Paul's not talking about, you know, meaning that that love waits a long time, but that it endures. It endures in the face of suffering. I mean, when things aren't going well, to be waiting and enduring and being patient is the idea of the language here. Uh, especially when people are not doing what we want them to do. I mean, life would be easy if everybody just did what we want them to do, right? I mean, if my kids just, when I said it, they did it. Awesome. And they always did it from that point forward. When a wife says, you know, to a husband, hey, do this, and then they did it forever, and they never messed up. Like, that would be easy, but that's not how life works because sinners in a marriage or sinners in a family. I mean, we we've got six kiddos, and we talk about all the time. More kids, more sin. Right? So our house is full of sin. But think we also have a house full of God's grace and his mercy and his kindness, and he's teaching us patience. I learned patience after a week of vacation with my kids. I learned more about patience. Not fully, I'm not there. That's how I know, not because I can preach a sermon, but because I can learn to be patient with my kids. And you guys know, I mean, growing up in our faith is a process and it's it's a struggle. I I I love to fish. It's one of my favorite things to do. Okay? It's one of my ways I refill my tank. I get out, I get onto a lake somewhere, I'm gonna kayak or just on the shore. I love to fish. Um I've got several buddies around here. We like to fish, it's it's really fun. And we just got back from this, like again, this place in Wisconsin. I'm not bragging, I'm just telling you the story. Um, we just got back from this place in Wisconsin. Beautiful place. There's this beautiful bald eagle flying over while we're fishing, uh, these loons on the lake making these amazing noises. It's 72 degrees. Did I say that already? And it was it was just an awesome place. This canvas of the sky with all these different colors as the sun was going down, just absolutely gorgeous. And I'm catching fish. And I've been up here before to this place to fish. And this time we took our kids with us. And so, of course, you know, it's not the same. Uh, I'm trying to fish and get refreshed and refueled, and and and I'm getting like hooked in the arm. Uh, every time I turn around, they got their lines all tangled up together. We don't know how it happened, Dad. It's like, and it looks like a gigantic rat's nest, you know. We don't know what happened, Dad. And so my fishing becomes, you know, at that point, like just basically moving from one thing to the other, to the other, to the other, fixing lines and trying to get them back in the water, and you know, and then I got one, dad, and like great, and it's like slaps me in the face with it, you know. But they're learning, and hopefully eventually, like as my kids get older, they'll learn how to fish themselves, and I'm not having to do it for them, and then we can go stand on them. It'll be awesome when they all are grown and we can all fish together, right? At least in my mind. Okay, but but growing them up, teaching them how to fish, developing that, and then the immature, like it's just a process. It's hard, it's messy, it's not easy. And that again, that that that illustration falls really short. But in the churches, we learn to use gifts, as we learn to work this thing out in our salvation, and uh learning how to participate in the mission, how to be the family of God together. It's it's messy and it doesn't always work right, and and we have to learn to be patient with each other. And God was teaching me patience with you through my children this week. He's teaching me patience about through myself, even though times I want to grow faster than I am, but we're learning, and love is patience, and love is kind. I mean, it's one thing to be patient, but you can put up with another's sin or you can put up with another's foolishness and still hate them. Like you can, I'm being patient, and I want you to know I'm being patient right now. You can talk through that grit of teeth, and you can say, I'm being patient, I'm showing patience to you all the while, like your heart is like, and I want to kill you right now, I want to murder you, right? Let's be honest. We've been in those spots, we've been in those places where we're saying we're being patient, but we're but our hearts are not like kind, not generous, not merciful, not gracious. I could go on this list, but I guess I said there's 15 of them there, and this week I encourage you to read. I mean, love does not envy, does not just like want what everybody else has. Love does not boast, it's not like, hey, look at me, everybody. I'm awesome. Love is not arrogant or puffed up, kind of fits in the same thing, the same theme, the same thread, as Paul's already addressed earlier. I've got this spiritual gift that everybody, you should look at my spiritual gift. It's pretty amazing. You know, I can prophesy, I can talk in another language, we'll get there next week. Um, this is a very interesting way of understanding how love shapes our gifts. It brings humility, it brings an other centeredness as we practice our gifts, as we participate in them. Love does not insist its own way. Wow, that would save our marriages from a lot of pain and heartache. Love's not irritable. Man, I fell on that one a lot. Maybe I need a therapy session right now. Love is not resentful, does not rejoice at wrongdoing, like rejoices with the truth, like really is excited when the truth comes out rather than like, uh-huh. Man, I was hoping they were really screwed up more. I I whatever it might be, like, do we rejoice with the truth? Do we rejoice with the good? Do we do we celebrate people? Maybe on the envy point, do we like do we actually like want other people to succeed? Or do we feel like if they succeed, then our value is somehow attacked and we were we're less? What about love bears all things? That sounds something like a similar to like the patience thing. What about uh this idea of love always hopes, love always perseveres? What about that not keeping a record of wrong? Anyone in there, you have that file? Anybody out here have a file? Am I the only one who has a file? A file that we like I'm gonna save that one for one of those spikes, man. I'm gonna pull that one out, it's gonna be awesome. It's gonna be like, you're trying to mess with me, and bam, I'm gonna bring that back up to your attention. You remember that day when you did that and you said that? And you remember that came out of your mouth? Right? Keep these records around. Because our human heart, apart from God's love, apart from love, it it it man, we can get vicious, to say the least. And it's not just out in the world, non-Christians, unbelievers, it's the Christians. It's us Christians. We Christians, we struggle again with our flesh, and we let these things go and we hurt people. Here's the thing love is not only really practical, those are a lot of practical things that are in there about how love works and how it works out in our lives and daily lives and relationships, but love is also permanent. Love's also permanent. He changes gears a little bit as he closes out the passage, not that he disconnects from what he's been saying, but just says, love never ends. That's how he begins, verse 8. And he talks about prophecies, they will come to an end, languages, they will cease, knowledge will come to an end. You guys, I hope you know this. Um, some people tend to get lost right here, uh, theologians in particular, about like, okay, whether gifts are still in operation or not, whether they've ceased or not. And they'll try to use this little section of passage and they'll say, well, you know, here's, don't you see that those those will come to an end. They'll cease. But if you put it in its context, by the way, I think it can make a very clear, strong case that what he's saying is that those things will cease when Jesus returns. Because no longer will we need prophecy, no longer will we need those kind of wisdom. In fact, it even fits really well when he says, right now we see dimly, one we will see clearly, we will not only know the love of God sort of partially, but we will actually know it fully, is that we are known fully by God. And it's not that we're going to become omniscient when Christ returns, but we are gonna have an awareness that we won't be doubting and fearing and feeling anxiety and worry and stress about does God really love me? Is this really true? Do I you don't really see the whole picture right now, but one day we will. That's a good thing. And when that happens, when that day comes, we won't need prophecy. We won't need the speaking in tongues and the interpretation of tongues. We won't need even healing because we will be whole and healed in the presence of Jesus. And that's gonna be an awesome day. And so until that time comes, we are in this state of knowing. But notice the reason why love never goes away, why love is permanent, why it's eternal, is because God is love and God is eternal, and this is a character of God that will not go away. He will forever be loving. He will forever be a loving God who loves people. And thankfully, in the end, when he returns, we will no longer be able to reject his love. And on a daily basis, I won't wake up in the morning and say, Does God love me today? Now, maybe I'm not saying that out loud, but how I'm living reflects a heart that doesn't truly believe God loves me. Many, many times I find that to be true. And so I go looking for that love, that acceptance, that value in someone else. I look to my spouse saying, Hey, listen, Jesus isn't enough. I need you to be Jesus to me right now. You want to destroy a marriage. Kids, Jesus isn't enough. I need your behavior right now to really give me my worth and identity and value. You want to destroy your relationship with your kids? Put Jesus expectations on them. What about the boss? I mean, this just goes on. You see what I'm saying? Because there's horizontal implications to this vertical reality that if we don't understand the love of God, that it is eternal, that it is forced, and it is not based on our performance. It's not based on like some of you walked in today, you're like, man, this week I did really bad. God must love me less. That's a lie. See, God's love isn't based on how you perform. God knew we were gonna screw up. He knows He knows our beginning from our end. He knew our days before we were born. He knows the number of hairs on your head for crying out loud. And he sees all of it, and he says, I love you. Even in your issues and your struggles. He loves us and he loves us forever, will love us forever. But how does this change us? How does this grow us? Well, he says, When I was a child, I acted like a child, I reasoned like a child, I talked like a child, right? I thought like a child. There has to be a shift in our thinking, and I believe that the shift that has to happen in our thinking is a shift that pushes us to understand in a greater measure the love of God for us. As we understand that, it changes everything. How many of you guys have tried to take a child to a movie recently? Or even sit down in your own house to watch a movie? Now, if you are uh have kids like my kids, my kids love the action of the movies. They love the action, they love things that are happening. Like uh as my kids, kids get older. I mean, uh some of my kids that are like my oldest son mentioned earlier, the one with the annoying drum. Um, we basically like reason started watching some more like these you know action hero movies, and so he loves the action of that. Now, have you ever tried to take your kid to like watch the notebook? Hopefully, no. Okay? If you say yes, we have some parenting lessons after the service today. But here's the thing if you try to take your kid to watch a movie that's a drama and it's like serious or it's a romantic comedy, like I mean, we men, we love our wives, we should invest in them, we should, we gotta we gotta grow up. I mean, I I recently watched La La Land for crying out loud. So, but here's the thing. We we gotta we gotta grow up, we gotta, we gotta, as we mature, my my kids, you know what they're gonna do if you watch, if you tell them to watch a movie like that that's not action-oriented, they're either gonna one, fall asleep, that would be the ideal thing, or two, they're gonna go berserkro's bonkers, they're gonna be climbing all over the place if I'm taking it to a cinema, even at my own house, they're gonna be constantly interrupting the movie because they don't care. They don't get it, they're not mature enough to get it. And in your life and in my life, if we're not mature, then obviously we're focused on, let's see the action. The gifts were the action for these Corinthian people. They're all locked in on the gifts and all these flashy things they could do, and all these things they could say, and all the things that could happen, but they were missing what was more important, which was the love. The love of God for them and the love of God through them. Are you with me? So if we are immature at first, we're gonna always be about the action. Let's just see it. Nothing wrong with that, except for the fact that as you grow, as you move, you no longer, he says, when I became a man, I put aside childish things. He's not saying we stop the gifts, by the way. He's saying we understand the deeper purpose for them. And we know how to use them in such a way to build up the body and not just make it about ourselves. This is why the sign gifts are extremely, extremely, extremely catch me, dangerous. This is why making maturity about gifted is very, very dangerous. Because you can again be very gifted and not necessarily be mature. And the sign gifts can be really flashbang, awesome, exciting. You can anticipate, oh man, what's God gonna do today? But miss God in it. Miss the heart of God in it. But here's the thing everything in this life is passing away. Right? Everything in this life is passing away. What's gonna remain? God's word, God's people. That's what's gonna last. It says the grass withers, the flower fades, but the word of God stands forever. Um that that's that's one thing we know for sure. We know that those who know the will of the Father, do the will of the Father, will live forever with God. And because again, God is a God of love, love will be a part of that forever. But here's what I need to hope this morning. Do you need hope? That we can actually grow into these people, we can mature. He dropped a bombshot. And that felt a little bit in my own heart like a bombshell as I read it this week in the midst of my own strugglings with my kids, being patient, enduring with them, working through some of the moments where I was just like, leave me alone. Only when the love of God penetrates and permeates our lives can we truly love others. I've already alluded to this multiple times in this message, but I want to say it again, just explicitly. Only when the love of God penetrates and permeates our lives, only when it gets through that tough exterior that says, God, I don't really need you. I'm okay. I'm prideful, I'm self-sufficient, I'm self-reliant, I don't really need God. So I'm gonna keep this tough exterior. But when God breaks through, when he penetrates that tough exterior, when we open our hearts to him and his love begins to saturate our life, then I believe that we can't help but love other people. The reason that I don't love other people is because I don't believe that God loves me. The reason that I don't demonstrate love and care and concern for other people's needs, I don't put them ahead of myself, is because I'm not convinced that I'm actually loved by God myself. I still think it's a performance for me, that I'm earning it, that somehow I deserve it. I'm entitled to it, versus like God gives it graciously, freely, as a gift. Because that's how it's described in Scripture. And as I receive God's love, I will begin to look to give love. Here's what 1 John 4.10 says love consists in this. Not that we have loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son Jesus to be the propitiation for our sins. There's your big theological vocabulary word. That Jesus took the wrath of God that I deserved. That Jesus put himself in my place. I deserved God's wrath, but Jesus took that wrath for me. He took the punishment that I deserve and the punishment that you deserve. He took it upon himself. Why? Let me tell you what. He didn't do it because he's powerful. He didn't do it because he's holy. He did it because he loves. You see, God sent Jesus, we know this because John 3.16, one of the most famous verses that we hear in the culture and the world around us today in the church, for God so what? Loved the world that he gave his only son. That whoever believes in him would not perish but have eternal life. The motivation behind the Father's heart to send Jesus to die on the cross for our sins, for your sins for mine, to offer us eternal life, to help us grow up and to enjoy life even amidst the hardship of it, was a motivation of love. And that changes everything. So much so that I'm convinced that, again, when we understand that, did you notice in the passage, he personifies love? I've mentioned this earlier. That you could substitute Jesus' name there. That Jesus is patient, Jesus is kind, Jesus does not envy, Jesus does not boast, Jesus is not proud, Jesus is not self-seeking, he is not rude, he does not keep a record of wrongs. Amen. Like, praise God, Psalm 103 is true. That as far as the East is from the West, He has removed our sins from us. Praise God for that. Because if not for that, I would deserve eternal separation for God forever. But that's not the case. And some of you don't believe that yet, and I'm praying that the Holy Spirit would reveal that to you. But praise God that Jesus is love, that we can know love through the person and work of Jesus. And if you're questioning Jesus' love right now in this very moment, let me just simply point you to the cross. Because the cross is the greatest act of love ever performed on this planet. Where Jesus laid down his life for us and took us while we were yet sinners, and he turned us into sons and daughters, if we would receive it. He gave us eternal life. He went from being dead to being alive when we received the gift of salvation. So that John 13, 35 might become a reality. By this, all people will know that you are my, this is Jesus' disciples, if you have love for one another. You know how the world knows that we're actually legit Christians? That we're actually following Jesus? That we're actually not just here doing a religion and trying to become better versions of ourselves, but actually believing and trusting in the grace and the power of Jesus Christ to make us new creations as He's declared that we are. It's not giftedness, it's not talents and abilities, not how good of a production we can put on on Sundays. It's not a lot of the things that the world would say, it's do we love each other? They will know. In fact, Jesus even prayed for that in John 17. Some of you read that this week in your reading plan. And his prayer for us was that they would be one, that the world would know that you sent me. They would love each other. We want to be a people of love. I want to be a person of love. And the only way I know to do that is to say, Jesus, help me. Help me, Jesus. Help me to be a loving husband. Help me to be a loving dad. Help me to be a loving pastor, a loving neighbor. Help me to love the way you love. So we need to marinate, we need to meditate on the love of God this week. We want to grow as a people of love. That's the only answer I know of. Let's pray. God, I pray that you would just continue to work in our lives and our hearts by your grace, by your mercy, by your spirit, to help us be convinced that we would know beyond a shadow of a doubt that every crevice and crack of our heart that feeds this idea that there is some sort of performance that we have to do, a little dance, a little jig so that you will love us, so we have to do these right things. We have to check these boxes. Help us to believe at the core of our hearts that we are loved because you created us and Jesus, you died on the cross for our sin. Help us to believe that today. Rescue us from our small-mindedness, rescue us from our fears, rescue us from the lies of the evil one. Rescue me, God, from pride. Rescue us from resisting your love to becoming conduits of it. I thank you so much that you are working in our hearts, and I thank you that you gave us this beautiful chapter in the Bible that reminds us that love is not just a feeling, but it's an affection that drives to an action. And that Jesus, you are the epitome of all that action. Praise in your name. Amen.