[0:00]She walks in beauty like the night of cloudless climbs and starry skies. And all that's best of dark and bright meet in her aspect and her eyes. Thus mellowed to that tender light which heaven to goy day denights. One shade the more one ray the less had half impaired the nameless grace which waves in every raven tress or softly lightens or her face. Where thoughts serenely sweet express how pure, how dear their dwelling place. And on that cheek and all that brow, so soft, so calm, yet eloquent, the smile that winds, the tints that glow, but tell of days in goodness spent, a mind at peace with all below, a heart whose love is innocent. And if you like the soppy stuff, that's actually a lot for today. Because this passage has nothing at all to do with romance. Uh, you can totally pick it for your wedding. Um, but as I think we'll see, it's quite a rogue choice if you do. Paul didn't get to this point in his letter and think, you know what, it's time for an interlude. In about 10 centuries' time, people are going to start getting married in churches, so I'd better put something in here for them. Nothing to do with this. This is not about romantic love. It's not a digression from everything that Paul's been teaching about the church, the body and the gifts. And you can see that because the gifts of tongues and prophecy are front and center at the start and the end of the chapter. If we think Paul has switched things up and is now writing to the loved up at Corinth, we're going to totally miss the point. Paul has already said, we saw it, um, a few months back that marriage isn't peak. This isn't romantic, but it is intended to be real for all of us. And the message doesn't change whether you're married, you're single, you're divorced, or you're widowed. It's a message for all of us about our hearts and our love, or indeed, potentially our lack of love for others. It's one of the most challenging things I think I've read recently. Honestly, I didn't see it coming when I started this week. I made them a terrible mistake of thinking I knew what this passage said. Paul wrote this to call out the Corinthians. For thinking they had everything sorted when they hadn't actually reached first base. And God through his word will ask the same questions to us this morning. And as we begin, I want to be clear this is not, this is absolutely not about the supremacy of love. It is not about the supremacy of love. It is about the absolute necessity of love. Love as defined by God, which cannot be done without. Now, believe me, as we go, if you're anything like me, you're going to want to get your red pen out with the scriptures this morning. You're going to want to edit, change, and generally water down what's written here. You'll be reaching for your big book of excuses why this doesn't work in particular situations that you're in. You'll want to lower the bar so you can proudly say that you clear it already. Because all of us know that love is important, so we are tempted to think we're loving enough as we are and we'll want to believe that God is satisfied with where we're at, too. This is an insanely searching text. It's not warm or fuzzy at all. And the question at the end, the question I think for all of us will be, when we finished this morning, will the arms of our hearts be stubbornly folded in a no chance?" "I'm fine as I am, not with them. I'm happy Lord with the way I love or, or will they be raised in prayer, pleading, Lord, change me." It's going to be one or the other for every heart in this room. You see, familiarity with the word is such a danger and these verses are so well known. It's it's hard to to hear them and know what should follow, but I'm mindful that it it doesn't get us anywhere this morning if we simply listen and understand the text better and then go out and live exactly the same way as we always did. Remember what James tells us. Do not merely listen to the word and so deceive yourselves, do what it says. If we do not live different as a result of hearing God's word, we leave here and we live this week deceived. That's simple. So with that in mind, let's turn to our father and pray. Father, you don't just want us to know truth, you want us to live it. You don't want us to admire or even just worship the Lord Jesus. You want us by your grace and the power of your spirit to actually become like him now. Lord, give us honest, dependent hearts this morning. Through your spirit pour your love in that we might be changed in the situations we find hardest today. And we will find hardest until we see you face to face. For the glory of the Lord Jesus, that his hand might be seen in our lives, we ask it. Amen. Three questions for us this morning, three questions. The first is this, do I grasp just how essential love is? One to three, the whole point of these verses is to tell us, each of us, that if we don't have love, if we don't walk in the way of love, then we have nothing. Now, no matter what else we do, or what other people might think about us, we could look great to others and be bankrupt in the sight of God. And remember Paul is not talking to the world here. He's not saying, 'Oh, you can look out there on the TV, you see people know love at all, all the time. Look down on them.' No, this is for us this morning. Paul's point here isn't that love needs to be at the top and the Corinthians have made the mistake by putting something else there, prophecy and tongues. That's not it. He's not saying that he he he's saying that without love, none of these other things or anything else, anything else we do matters. Anything else is a mess.
[7:04]And Paul makes it clear that two things we might definitely think count, totally don't without love. Gifts and giving. Gifts first, if I speak in the tongues of men or angels, if I speak with all the language, I speak them all, all of them by the power of God. But I do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging symbol. Now the word gong there in Greek, it's actually just the word bronze. It just says bronze. And I honest it's not used anywhere to refer to to gongs. I think it's more likely that it refers to these kind of bronze acoustic resonators that the Greeks invented to help with the sound in their open air theaters. So what Paul's saying is, without love, it doesn't matter what you're saying or what language you're using, or how impressive it is, you are nothing more than an actor. You're delivering lines. You're making an empty noise like someone just clanging a symbol pointlessly. So, if Tom and I preach sermons without love, God doesn't think we're pastors. He says we're actors with book collections trying to play the part. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. Now you see in all of this, Paul's taking it to the Nth degree and all joking aside. We will next week be digging into prophecy and tongues, but one verse alone doesn't show that Paul thought he did speak with the tongues of angels anymore than verse two means he actually had cast mountains into the sea through prayer, all that he thought that he personally could fathom all mysteries and all knowledge. He's taking everything to the max and saying, even if you take it to that level, even if you take it to that level, it means nothing without love. And he says to the Corinthians, yes, desire the gift, desire being equipped to glorify God and serve him and his people. He says that at the end of chapter 12. But you've got to get love front and center first. Look at the beginning of chapter 13, follow the way of love and eagerly desire gifts of the spirit. So the question is, do I actually believe any of this? That gifts, that service without love is actually meaningless. I am nothing, I gain nothing. And do you see what I mean? This isn't the light, the easy part of this book. If we're paying attention at all, this will drive us to Jesus. Because it's not just gifts, I can't substitute giving either. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. It's not even am I generous? Not over the course of my life, have I given a very considerable amount of time and money? No, if you gave the lot, you cashed in your pension, you sold the house, you emptied your account, you gave the whole lot, and then you gave up yourself.
[10:27]The NIV has hardship, but it could be in view of Paul's argument, I think it probably is far more than that. If I gave up my body to the flames, if I gave everything I I that I had, and I gave up my own body as a martyr, if everything went, including me, and I don't have love, I gain nothing. It would not move the dial. There would be no well done from God for all of that. Generous, charitable giving means nothing without an attitude of charity towards others. The lack of the one completely undermines the value of the other. Now that's astonishing, right? You could do all this as a believer. Again, it's his believers he's talking to. You could do all of those things that other people would look on and applaud you for and go, he, she was smashing it. They would cry mournfully at your funeral as a martyr that would get you in like Christianity today. And it could all not mean a thing in the sight of God because of the attitude of heart. And we can't sub anything else in for love, something that we put more value on or that we think that God should accept in its place because it's the thing we're good at. So if you take an exam and you don't like the questions when you get in, you can't cross them out and write your own. If you do that, you fail, you get zero, and it's the same with this, you try and live your Christian life and you serve God and you do all the things and you do it without love. Nothing counts. Maybe think of it like this, ask yourself this. Do I primarily expect people around me to be grateful for the things that I do, or do I expect them to be thankful to him, for whom I'm becoming?
[12:36]You see, I don't think I I you know, we've looked at some tough passages. I don't think that one Corinthians 13 is hard to understand, it's just really hard to accept. Paul's saying that love is the ladder on which the entire life of discipleship needs to be climbed, and if you don't, you never make it off the floor. Now, if you're here this morning and you wouldn't say you follow Jesus, and all of this is new to you, maybe your first time in church, it's so good that you came, we're so pleased that you're here. But listen carefully to this, following Jesus is not an invitation to to take up some rituals. It's not about handing over some cash or time or any of that, it is so much more than that. It says here, plainly, you could do all those things and it won't make a bit of difference. It's about a love, a real active and guiding, life changing love that flows from God into us and out to others, regardless of what they are like. It's not about loving our spouse right, if we have one, important though though that is. It's about loving everyone. And that shouldn't surprise us if we know our Bibles at all. Love God, love your neighbor as yourself, the two great commandments. And in one sense, one Corinthians 13 is Paul saying to us, have you actually taken that seriously? Because Jesus wasn't joking and he wasn't being naive either and we'll come to that. Do I, do you grasp how essential love is? Now, if I do, if I say I accept that, um, because I know my own heart's response for that is to then accept that and then engage in a bit of creative accounting. Because we all want to pass the test. Yes, we could do better, sure, there are people that we struggle with. But we're mostly on track, and we're certainly better than a lot of people we know. Maybe we don't do it how other people think we should, but in our own way, in our own way, we are expressing love. And immediately Paul asks the second question, which is this, too, will I submit to God's definition of love rather than being satisfied with subbing in my own? See, love does involve feelings. I can't be doing with people that try and reduce love and Christian love to actions only. Love is passionate, love delights. God delights in his people, the actions don't count without the affections to go with them, right? If you were getting married and your fiance said this to you, would you be okay with it? I have no feelings whatsoever for you, none at all, but I will do all the stuff. I will be the best husband or wife ever, whatever you want, I'll be totally on it. Which of us would be satisfied with that? Would that not still be a loveless marriage? Love isn't less than feelings, but it is much more. I want to feel loving and I want to act loving and what that action must look like is spelled out here. And the crucial thing, the crucial thing for us is you cannot swap something else into this definition that you think is your strong suit. We have to go with what God actually says. We then get to work with our own personalized version of love, while the way I show love, the love language I speak is this. No, there is one definition, it's here, and God wants us working with his. It's the one this morning that you and I have to hold our hearts up to. And again, it's not difficult to understand, in fact, it's really clear. Love is this, and it's not that, plain as day. Love is patient, love is kind. Love is patient, so if I'm not patient, I am not loving. And we need to remember patience is only present when something tempts me to be impatient, because that's when I put patience on. When all is well at my world and everyone is doing exactly what I want, I'm not being patient because I have no need to be. The situations we find hard reveal what's really going on in here. Think about it, if God wanted, if he saw glory in putting his patience on display when we wanted nothing to do with him, when we were dead in our transgressions, then we should expect that as his redeemed image bearers, he would so order your life and mine to give us opportunities to have the glory of displaying his patience, too. But if I prize as being being known as no nonsense. If I like being known as someone who you shouldn't cross, or life gets difficult, then I'm definitely landing on the wrong side of this. With those nearest to us, colleagues, coursemates, flatmates, our spouse, our kids, our parents. Would they say that we are patient, and we are kind? Love, it does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. Love is not all about itself. Love does not point out its own great achievements. Love doesn't dwell on what others have got. Love delights in others, and love is secure. Love doesn't spend its time looking to subtly knock down others when other people talk them up. Plenty of that going on in Corinth, we've seen that rivalries and factions. So what about our hearts and homes? What about them? Have you ever had a conversation about another believer that you'd be ashamed for them to read the transcript of?
[18:23]Love, it does not dishonor others. Like what was happening at the Lord's supper at Corinth, where there was an in crowd, and then there was everyone else, everyone, they didn't really bother with. Sure it was nice to have the numbers, but they weren't interested in them. Love looks to raise other people up and bring them in. Love isn't thoughtless about the new person. Love doesn't say, I've got my crew. I've been here for years. I don't need any more friends. Where are we with hospitality? Is our home ours or the Lord's? When we do have people over, is it always old friends, people at the same age and stage? Are the lonely, the new, the struggling to find their place, in our hearts, or they someone else's problem? Love sees others as precious because it knows who made them and whose image they bear. Love is is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love doesn't say, 'You will do things my way or I'll sulk, or I'll withdraw, or I'll refuse to help you when you ask.' It says none of those things. It's not easily angered, and you you can't sub that out for something you think you're better at. And you can't say, well, well, maybe I do have a short fuse and bear the odd grudge, but I have given lots and I've put in a shift. What does Paul just said about that kind of talk? And it doesn't say, it does not say, this does not apply if you've been wronged. Other people's sin does not take our duty to love them like this off the table. Think about what your eternity turns on. Micah 7:19. You will again have compassion on us. You will tread our sins under foot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea. Isaiah 38:17, in your love, you kept me from the pit of destruction, you have put all my sins behind your back. Our eternity turns on promises like that, fulfilled through the cross of Christ. And we are called to be just like him. Do you hurl other people's sins into the depths of the sea? Do you put them behind your back so you can never see them again? Or do you write them up in a big internal book of grievances? Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. Love doesn't go along when someone else isn't being loving in support. It doesn't relish the opportunities to lay into someone behind closed doors. It doesn't see a marriage or a close friendship as a safe space to really speak its mind about people that you both agree are difficult. Love has higher, more glorious priorities. It rejoices with the truth. It leads others out of anger, not deeper into it. It knows that there's a savior who transforms us and actually intends by his power for us to live different. Love, it always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love doesn't run out of steam. Love keeps going, love doesn't expire. Love doesn't give people a quota of chances. Love doesn't say, well, well, they don't do this, so I'm not going to bother either. We're not to be a church with a with having our crowd and being satisfied with it like the Corinthians were. Now, there are hard cases, I know, criminal activity, abuse, just two examples. What love looks like in those circumstances takes wisdom. God puts us in community to walk those tough roads together. But here, Paul Paul's focus isn't really on those hard cases. It's on the everyday and routine ways that as sinners, we excuse our own loveless behavior. This is about a permanent, unshakable commitment that we owe each other and that we owe everyone. So will we accept God's definition of love this morning? Will you and I pursue this kind of love in the with the people and in the places that we find hardest? Will we fight to love like this? Instinctively what tends to matter to us more, being loving or being right? And we're still not done. There's a third question here, it's the one that calls us to listen and act now. When the end comes, in that final analysis before the throne, will I have prioritized love as I should? Love never fails, it keeps going here, and it keeps going into eternity. Even other good things that we do that we rightly prize now, good gifts of God for our blessing and the benefit of others, they will all cease, only love continues. Love never fails, but where there are prophecies, they will cease, where there are tongues, they will be stilled, where there is knowledge, it will pass away. Because the day is coming when we won't need any of that stuff anymore. We won't need the Bible anymore, because we will be with God and we will hear his voice direct. There are no commentaries in glory. There are no preachers either. The day is coming a glorious day when Tom and I are left completely redundant. We'll have to find something else to do. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears. We do know truth about God, we have certainty through the gospel, but there is so much more to come. And there'll be no differences in translations. There'll be no confusions over context. We will know everything for sure. And so Paul's saying, don't prize the things that are going to pass away above what won't, which is love. Because one day we'll have all grown up. We'll have passed through this phase of life and we will be in glory. We will leave this age and stage behind us, but not love. And one day we won't see a reflection of God's word, accurate, though that reflection is in his word. We will see him face to face. So don't prize above all else what is only a reflection, even if it's a precious one. Prize the love that stretches from today into eternity. And now these things remain, faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love. In this world we have faith, faith being confidence in what we hope for and assurance of what we do not yet see. And we have hope in the face of hardship and struggle and sorrow. We know that the night is dark, but we have hope so we know that daybreak is at hand. And one day everything that's bad and sad will be in the rearview, never to be seen again. One day you won't need faith because his face you at last shall see. One day you won't need hope because it will have all been fulfilled. Everything promised will be yours through Christ. You won't need faith, you won't need hope, but you'll never stop loving. And so love is the greatest. Now maybe we're not obsessed with tongues and prophecy. But I think we can fall into this trap in another way. By going, we're the Bible people. We love to sit under the authority of God's word. We're all about the book, or others go soft on it, we never will. We love the book, we read all the big books about the book. Make every sure everything we do lines up with what's said in the book. And if we do all that, and we don't love like love is set out here, we are nothing and we gain nothing. You can't substitute soundness for love. Poverty of doing that, dead orthodoxy. Follow the way of love. And on this younger people. Don't be an idiot like I was when I was your age. When I was a younger Christian, I realized now I was way too Corinthian. I totally prioritized knowing stuff. I wanted all the sound theology, and I had a shriveled little heart. This love is the thing. If I read John Calvin and John Owen, if I master Hebrew and New Testament Greek, if I'm a published author, popular podcaster, and conference speaker, but I have not love, I am nothing.
[28:07]Now that's all well and good, but if the message of all this is try harder, really work on your love, we know that doesn't work. If you struggle with being impatient or short tempered, for example, if you know you've got all sorts of records of other people's wrongdoings, just sat there in the filing cabinet of your mind, then you know you can't just decide to shred the lot. And yet this is saying we have to walk this way. It's not okay to go, I'll never be perfect till I see him, so what can I do? Jesus doesn't want any of us living lives that ultimately amount to nothing. That's why Paul brings this up, so there will be actual radical change. So I wonder if we went through it, if you noticed who isn't mentioned here at all in one Corinthians 13. Strange, isn't it? There's not a single mention of God or Jesus. Why? I think it's this. Because this isn't about us admiring Jesus for having these qualities. It's about us taking them on through him. Walking in his way. Of course we rejoice in his love for us. But the point is, that love is to be in us and coming out of us, too. And as we think that through, it's important to remember the context we've seen over recent weeks that it's come in. As I said, it's not an interlude on love. We've just been told that we're a body. We've been told that we're united to Jesus and we all have his spirit. Now if you forget that, you really will end up in discouragement, when you find out that trying harder doesn't work. And it's this that stops us saying, well, where where I am, with my circumstances, my history, I'm an exception to this. It stops us saying something like this to God, this love stuff, it's all very interesting. I agree with it all, it's all great. But I've always had a short fuse and I've always been someone to hold a grudge. And my mom had a short fuse, my granddad represented England in the 1964 bad tempered Olympics. I'm sorry, this is just who I am. If we were to say that to God, I imagine he would say this. That may be true. But now you're a new creation, you've been born again, you are filled with my spirit and united to my son. And those are the things that define you now. What did Jesus say, apart from me, you can do nothing. For hope isn't trying harder, the hope is him. Which means you and I can love like this. This is a yet not I thing. Our history are all too easily offended, hard hearts, our stubborn refusal to love those that we feel have wronged us. None of that is a match for the power of union with Christ. Because you are one with him, his love can become your own. I might not currently be patient, kind, long-tempered, humble. But he is. And his love can change all of us without exception. 1 John 4 verse 16. And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love, lives in God, and God in them. You see, the big miracle, the big miracle, it's not doing miracles. It's not speaking in tongues or prophesying or anything else. The big miracle isn't located in anything that we do, but in who we're becoming through Christ. Which means unless we're prepared to say, and it would be a bold statement to say, 'I already love just like Jesus does this morning,' then we've all got growing to do here, young and old alike. Which starts with us wanting to follow what this says, wanting to be changed by and through Jesus, leaning into his ways, fighting all those temptations we face to be loveless, or to change the standard here. It's the love of Christ that enables us to confess where we fall short. Why I don't need excuses, because I have grace. And there's a wonderful hint of that gospel grace in verse 12. If you've got a Bible, get your eyes on verse 12. For now we see only a reflection in a mirror, then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known. You see, you're fully known by Christ already. And he's not walked out on you, and he never will. He sees it all. He sees everything that we would hide. He sees all the times we're faking it. He sees all the times that we can't be bothered to listen to him. That we refuse to lean on his grace. He knows all of that. You are fully known, and he loves you. He sees you, he knows you, he loves you. Which means we don't have to settle this morning for wanting to do a passable impression of love in public when other people are watching. We can actually look to being changed from the inside to the out 24/7. Because he loves you like this, because his love for you is constant and vast as the ocean, because it is fixed and sure. You can love others like this, too. You're absolutely right to doubt yourself. You have no need to doubt him. Love never fails. Amen.
