Well, good morning, church. It's just so, so kind of the Lord to meet with us today during our time of worship. The Lord is so good. For those of you who I have not met yet, my name is Alec, and I have the joy and privilege of being one of the pastors in training here at Cross of grace. Part of my responsibilities at the church is overseeing our small groups as well, our volunteers on Sunday mornings.
I just want to say, if you've been with us through the book of First Corinthians, we've had quite a ride, haven't we? From head coverings to sexual immorality to people getting drunk at church, just to name a few things. Today's text is one of those passages that goes down just a little bit easier. But it's also a passage that even if you don't go to church, if church is new for you, you've heard this passage many times and in many ways. So even though it's a text that's familiar to us, this is God's word, guys, and he has written this. He's preserved this for us today. So we want to lean in with anticipation that the Lord is trying to. He's trying to accomplish something through our passage today.
So if you have your bibles, we're going to be looking at one corinthians, chapter 13, but we're going to actually be starting in chapter twelve, verse 31. This is God's word, but earnestly desire the higher gifts, and I will show you a still more excellent way. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have. And if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they will seize. As for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. But when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. And when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part. Then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. So now, faith, hope, and love abide these three, but the greatest of these is love.
Heavenly Father, we need your help. Lord, I need your help. Lord, would your spirit illumine this passage in our minds and in our hearts today? Lord, would you bring conviction where conviction is needed? Lord, would you bring comfort where comfort is needed? Father, would you help me serve your church with love as I preach your word? Lord, if there's anything you have for us today that I have not prepared ahead of time, Lord, would you give me the courage to get out of the way so that you can speak to your church? Lord, in everything we do, we do this for your glory. And all of God's people said, amen.
Well, I am fascinated by cooking shows, and there's one in particular called chopped. Does anyone watch chopped on the food network? There we go. We got a couple. And what I've learned is while techniques and experience are important when it comes to being a chef, there's always a particular emphasis on these shows about the ingredients. In cooking competitions like chopped, they usually have a featured ingredient that must be the star of the meal. And on this show, a meal that looks good and tastes good can actually be a bad meal. If it's forgetting that featured key ingredient in that show. Too much of something, too little or even something that's missing at all will determine whether or not that chef is going to be on the chopping block and going home. The comments from the judges range from, man, this is so tasty, but I can't even taste the gruyere cheese that you were supposed to put in here, or it's barely there, or even, did you even put it in there? And then when the chef on the show realizes that they forgot that ingredient, that it was sitting on the shelf, I mean, your stomach just drops for these guys. You're like, man, that guy was working so hard. You could just see the sweat on his face, the veins popping out. He worked so hard. And even worse, the camera will zoom in on that shelf. To look at that one ingredient, just ashamed that chef, look what you forgot. You neglected it. And then even worse, the ominous music intensifies as a host, after a long pose or a long pause, declares chef Tom, your dish is on the chopping block. But I'm sorry, there was not enough gruyere cheese in your dish. And at home, we're like, we're in pain with the guy. We're like, ah. I know. He did everything he could. If only he had forgotten that he would be in the next round.
And like a food judge, Paul is trying to help the Corinthians see that although they have the latest state of the art kitchens around them, although they have the right utensils and the freshest foods at their disposal, they're sending out food lacking the main ingredient to the church in Corinth. They have all the gifts, but they are missing the gift that accompanied. They are missing what accompanies the gift, which is love.
6 · The sermon's controlling thesis is stated directly: Christians must not neglect love as the essential ingredient in all their service, and the danger at Cross of Grace (despite abundant volunteerism) is religious activity divorced from genuine love
So the charge from Paul to the Corinthians and the chart for us today is simply this, Christian, don't forget the most important ingredient in our pantry. Serve with love at our church at Cross of grace. I am beyond grateful for how many people we have here who are just eager to serve one another. But my burden from this text is that if we are not careful and intentional about serving in love, we're just going to be doing a bunch of religious things while that main ingredient is just sitting there on the shelf.
7 · Structural roadmap announcing the sermon's three-part movement through the text: the futility of loveless service (verses 1-3), the nature of biblical love (verses 4-7), and love's eternal permanence (verses 8-13)
So we're gonna talk about three different types of love today in our passage. The first is pointless love, second, biblical love, and third, unending love.
8 · Signals the beginning of the first major section addressing verses 1-3 and the worthlessness of gifted ministry performed without love
So, point number one, pointless love.
9 · Contextualizes 1 Corinthians 13 within Paul's larger three-chapter discourse on spiritual gifts, clarifying that Paul is not rejecting the gifts themselves but insisting they must be exercised in love—preventing a possible misreading that would see chapter 13 as an abandonment of chapters 12 and 14
Well, the first thing to notice in the verse before our passage in chapter 13, Paul is not throwing out the spiritual gifts. He's not throwing these away, saying, man, you caused way too much of a mess. These are done. What he tells us right before chapter 13 is to earnestly desire the higher gifts. And we have to remember that these three chapters, 1213 and 14, weren't read individually. They were one unit, one letter.
10 · States Paul's central concern in the immediate literary context: the Corinthians possess genuine spiritual gifts but are deploying them without the love that should accompany and validate those gifts
And in chapter 13, sandwiched in between twelve and 14, Paul is trying to drive home a point. You have the gifts. You got the gifts, but you don't got the love behind the gifts.
11 · Direct engagement with verses 1-3, identifying the rhetorical pattern of Paul's argument—each example of impressive spiritual activity is negated by the refrain 'but have not love,' establishing love as the non-negotiable qualifier for all Christian service
Verse one. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. So what's that common phrase we see in these first three verses, but have not love.
12 · Exposition breaks down Paul's three categories of loveless activity—speaking (verse 1), knowing (verse 2), and doing (verse 3)—with particular emphasis on tongues as the Corinthians' prized gift
And he connects these to three things in the life of this church. What Paul is concerned about is what the Christian says, what the Christian knows, and what the Christian does. So for this church, tongues was at the top of their list. And it's no coincidence that Paul uses this gift to help them see what they are doing. And what he is saying in verse one is, if you speak in tongues, but you do it in a way devoid of love while you are talking, this is what he's saying. I've been so excited to do this all week. What he is saying is, you sound like this. [sound of loud gong] That's so fun.
13 · Exposition of verse 2 emphasizes Paul's shocking verdict: comprehensive theological knowledge, prophetic insight, and mountain-moving faith—the marks of spiritual maturity the Corinthians would have celebrated—are rendered 'nothing' when love is absent
What's Paul saying without love? In our speech, Paul says, that's what we are. We're just clanging cymbals, a loud gong. Right? Then he goes on to further illustrate with some dramatic hyperbole in verse two, he says, if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge with all faith, faith strong enough to move mountains, but have not love, we would think, oh, I. I am everything. But he says, no, you're nothing. What a contrast, right, Christian, if you knew all things when it came to theology, all answers to the mysteries of the Bible, if you are someone who loves digging deep into the word and wants to know the nuances of the Greek and the Hebrew, hear Paul's warning, don't leave love on the shelf. Love or knowledge without love, Paul says, is nothing.
14 · Exposition of verse 3 addresses radical self-sacrifice and generosity—total divestment of possessions and even martyrdom—showing that even these ultimate acts of devotion gain nothing if performed without love
And then verse three, Paul talks about the one who sacrifices to the extreme all possessions, even their own life, maybe even today. This might be someone that's like, look at me. I volunteer everywhere I am in all of these Bible studies. I give so much of my time, all of my resources. Check me out. It's that guy that might be hanging out in the back by the little tithe box we got over there saying, oh, you throwing a five? I threw in five Ben Franklins this morning. What do you think of that? Here's the sacrifice. Without love, Paul says, amounts to nothing.
15 · Synthesizes the exposition into a doctrinal claim about Christian maturity—it is measured by love, not giftedness—and then escalates the stakes by cross-referencing Matthew 7, where Jesus warns that religious activity (prophesying, exorcisms, miracles) performed without genuine relationship to him will be rejected at the judgment
The sign of christian maturity for Paul is not how gifted you are. The sign for christian maturity for Paul is how much you love the experienced chef, the Michelins. The five stars are the chefs who are not only amazingly talented, not only who have the best knife skills and who know and learn from other great chefs, but they, the good chefs, know that in order for me to serve my customers, I have to make sure I handle the ingredients properly. For us as Christians, love is the most important ingredient that we have at our disposal. So as we read verses one through three, we have to ask, am I a Christian who has left the most important ingredient in the pantry? Have I, as a Christian, been serving on autopilot, neglecting love on the shelf? Jesus gives a sobering warning in Matthew's account, chapter seven, he says, not everyone who says to me, Lord, Lord, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my father who is in heaven. On that day, many will say to me, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and cast out demons in your name and do many mighty works in your name? Jesus says, then I will declare to them, I never knew you depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.
16 · Cross-references John 13 to establish Jesus' explicit command that love for one another is the distinguishing mark of discipleship, then applies this standard to the congregation's life: service excellence means nothing if love is mediocre, but mediocre service with excellent love fulfills Jesus' command
But then Jesus says in chapter 13 of John's gospel, he says, a new commandment, I give you that you love one another. And he says, just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this love, all people will know that you are my disciples. If you have love for one another and church, here's the thing. If we are getting an a in service, but a c in love, we're missing the point. We're missing the target. Look, it's okay if we get a c in service, but if we're getting an a in love, Paul is cheering us on.
17 · Extended application probing multiple life domains—Sunday worship, prayer, marriage, parenting, workplace—asking whether listeners are serving with genuine love or merely performing religious/moral duties
Christian, is there any area of your life where you are neglecting the main ingredient of love? Maybe you're sitting there. No, I'm good. Well, let me ask you this. Do you show up Sunday morning looking for opportunities to love people through your worship, through your serving, and through your care, or are you just going through religious motions? Does your love for your brothers and your sisters in the church actually lead you to pray for them? When you say, I'll pray for you, or maybe you're at home and you're doing something good, talking about the Bible with your spouse, are you doing it in an unloving manner? Been there. Parenting. Are we parenting to instill fear, to motivate our kids with fear? Are we parenting to motivate them with love? Last one in the workplace. Do you sit at a work meeting and just rehearse over and over what you are about to say? Thinking about man. I just want everyone to think highly of me after I talk. Or are you thinking rehearsing? I just want to do good for this company. I want to help my coworkers and for Paul.
18 · Returns to the cooking metaphor to synthesize the theological verdict: loveless Christian service is not merely ineffective but actively counterproductive to the witness of the church, and Paul's solution in 12:31 is to introduce the 'more excellent way'—the ingredient they've been neglecting
The Corinthians have to see that serving with their gifts apart from love is fruitless. It's counterproductive. And most importantly, it is not the way of Christ. So when we serve, when we witness, when we do life together without love, we are like that saltless, bland, raw bite of food that people take a bite into at the restaurant. We don't want to be like that. We don't want our witness to others, to each other in the church, to just be like, oh, what was that? No, but like a celebrity chef who's watched a failing chef fail over and over and over, who then offers a new way to cook. Paul in 1231 says, I will show you a still more excellent way by introducing the missing ingredient that you've been leaving in the pantry.
19 · Signals the transition to the second major section of the sermon, addressing verses 4-7 and Paul's positive description of what agape love actually is
Point number two, biblical love, verse four.
20 · Reads verses 4-7 aloud, then immediately confronts the congregation's assumption that this passage is about romantic love—it is not wedding poetry but rather rebuke addressed to a dysfunctional church
Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Now, where do we hear this most often recited? Weddings. That's right. Well, I hate to break it to you, but these verses are not about a wedding. Context is important for this passage. This is why, as a church, we want to read books of the Bible verse by verse, to get an understanding of man. What's God's big picture that he is saying here?
21 · Directs the congregation to 1 Corinthians 4:18 to establish the broader context of Paul's letter—he has been confronting arrogance throughout the epistle, providing the backdrop for why the love discourse in chapter 13 specifically addresses pride and boasting
So if you have your bibles, turn with me to the left a little bit to chapter four, verse 18. And to give you a context of what's going on, Paul is talking in this chapter about these boastful church leaders, and what he says about them is man, some of you are arrogant, right? He's like, some of you are arrogant.
22 · Traces Paul's escalating rebuke from 4:18 ('some of you are arrogant') to 5:2 ('you are arrogant'), showing how the church's arrogance manifests in tolerating egregious sexual sin, establishing the church-wide nature of the problem Paul addresses in chapter 13
And then in the next chapter, chapter five. This is crazy. He's talking about a situation of sexual immorality where a man in this church is sleeping with his father's wife. So from chapter four, verse 18, to chapter five, verse two, five verses later, Paul goes from man, some of you are arrogant. To you are arrogant.
23 · Cites 1 Corinthians 5:6 where Paul explicitly names the Corinthians' boasting as sinful, further documenting the pattern of pride that chapter 13's definition of love will directly contradict ('love does not boast')
A few verses later, in verse six, he says, your boasting is not good.
24 · Synthesizes the contextual evidence from chapters 4-5 and the series as a whole to make the exegetical claim explicit: the love discourse in 13:4-7 is not generic wedding poetry but a targeted rebuke—Paul is holding up a mirror to show the Corinthians what they lack
Throughout our whole study in one corinthians, we've seen how they've struggled with divisions within the church. We've seen these messy, chaotic gatherings, so many problems in this church. So when Paul writes, love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant. What Paul is saying is this, christians in Corinth, love is what you are not. This isn't about weddings. It's a rebuke. He's rebuking them to help them see who they are in light of who they were called to be and by love.
25 · Defines the specific Greek term Paul uses—agape—distinguishing it from romantic/erotic love and friendship love (philia), and establishes its semantic range: faithfulness, commitment, action, warm regard for others' interests
Paul is not talking about this sappy, lovey dovey, sentimental, head over heels type of love. He's talking about a very specific type of love in its original language, agape love. So in the Bible, we have a few different greek words to help us understand the type of love that an author may be referring to. So unlike our english word love, agape is not used in the New Testament to refer to this romantic or intimate sexual love. Nor does it refer to this close friendship of a good buddy or a brotherly love that actually comes from Philia, where our city, Philadelphia, gets its name. The city of brotherly love. But agape love involves faithfulness, commitment, and action. This is the kind of love he is talking about in this passage. Agape love is a warm regard for and the interest of others. So he writes out what that agape love is because they don't understand what it is. So he has to lay it out.
26 · Begins the verse-by-verse exposition of the love list with patience and kindness, defining each by its opposite: impatience prioritizes self over others; unkindness contradicts God's kindness to sinners in Christ
So verse four, he says, agape love is patient and kind. Impatience puts oneself first. It puts my timeline, my schedule before yours, because it's like mine's more important than yours. Kindness. The opposite is this harshness, this unkindness that is contrary to God's kindness in Jesus Christ, to sinners.
27 · Expounds 'does not envy or boast'—envy is jealousy over others' advantages; boasting is self-elevation through flaunting one's own advantages
When he says love does not envy, it does not boast. It is not jealous over another person's personality, another person's gifting, another person's possessions. Nor is it someone that brags about their own possessions and their accomplishments and their gifts in order to elevate themselves over others. What love is, love is grateful. Love is also humble.
28 · Exposition of 'not arrogant or rude' uses the Greek term 'puffed up' (recurring throughout 1 Corinthians) and illustrates with the gym bodybuilder who cannot fit through doorways—a picture of self-inflation that must be deflated in order to redirect energy toward building others up rather than self
He also says, Agape is not arrogant or rude. He says, love is not proud. And by proud, that word can be translated as puffed up. He says it throughout his letter in one corinthians. This idea about being arrogant is this idea of just puffing yourself, inflating yourself, right? Does anyone still go to the gym and work out? Or does anyone attempt to still go to the gym and work out? Right? Some of us, right? And what he's saying is, love is not arrogant. What he's saying is, love is not that guy at the gym that walks around as soon as he enters the door, as soon as he leaves his car in the parking lot, walks around with this, who has to, like, turn in order to get through the door, whose lats are just so big he can't even walk with his arms to his side. That is kind of what he's talking about. It's that guy, that person that is just so puffed up, so about himself. But what he says is now love is making every effort to get the air out of yourself, to just go from to and to do that and to go to someone who's down, who's out, and to say, I'm going to take all my effort that I want to put towards me and I'm going to love you by putting that effort into you and building you up. That's what love is.
29 · Brief exposition of 'not rude'—defined as awareness of how one's words impact others, avoiding shocking or dishonoring speech
It's not rude. It's being aware of the things we say it and how it comes across to other people before we say it. And some people see it as it's not dishonoring or it's not shocking. Has someone ever said something to you that was just shockingly rude? You're like, oh, my gosh. Like, wow, you actually did say that. No way. That's what he's talking about. Love is not rude.
30 · Exposition of 'does not insist on its own way'—love is not self-seeking but other-oriented, considering others' needs before one's own, refusing to treat relationships (with spouse, children, siblings in Christ) as competitive arenas where winning matters
Love makes your okay. I don't want to shock anyone with my words. He says, love is not irritable. Oh, sorry. It does not insist on its own way. So it's not self seeking either. It considers not man, what about me? First? It considers first, what about them? What about you? It's not trying to win against a brother or sister in the faith, your spouse or your child. Love is referring to them. Love is serving them where they are and putting their needs first.
31 · Exposition of 'not irritable or resentful' emphasizes love's refusal to keep records of wrongs, grounded in reciprocal awareness: love remembers its own sin and how it has been forgiven, which motivates forgiving others
Says agape is not irritable or resentful. Love has a short term memory. Love does not keep records of wrongs because love remembers its own sins and its own times of letting people down. Love says this, I have been hurt, and I remember how that felt. That was not fun. But love also says, I've also hurt people and people have forgiven me. So now I forgive them.
32 · Exposition of 'does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth' directly applies to the Corinthians' specific sins (incest, lawsuits, prostitution) mentioned earlier in the letter, showing that love refuses to tolerate or celebrate sin
Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love is not adding fuel to the fire when other christians are living in sin, specifically to this church in Corinth. Love does not rejoice in incest, in selfish lawsuits, or in sex with prostitutes. It seems like a no brainer, but this is what they were doing. And look, if you're tuning in as a first time guest, I just want to say this church was whack. But this is what I love about the Bible. The Bible is brutally honest. The Bible doesn't leave the messy stuff out. And that's encouraging to me because I'm a very messy person that can relate with the messiness of the Bible. Rejoicing in truth is celebrating. It's celebrating when our brothers and sisters in the faith are obedient to what Jesus is calling them to do, especially when it's difficult as a church. As christians, I think we can grow in our celebrating of one another, our commending of one another, when we take the narrow route.
33 · Exposition of the final four 'all things' phrases (bears, believes, hopes, endures) emphasizes love's perseverance in difficulty, clarifying that 'believes all things' and 'hopes all things' are not naïve optimism but faith anchored in God's character—his power to give life to the dead and to forgive sins
Then he concludes, love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love doesn't run away when people and circumstances get difficult. Love puts up with much when he says, believes all things, hopes all things, Paul is not talking about this naivete as if love believes the most improbable things. But love does not give way to cynicism, to despair. It believes in the God who gives life to the dead. It hopes for the best, since it looks to the God who forgives sins and who can grant fresh starts and new beginnings. Belief and hope do not exist in a vacuum. They are anchored to the promises of God.
34 · Pivots from exposition to application by naming the tension listeners likely feel: the love list is both pursuable and impossible to fulfill perfectly
So after reading a list like this, we have to ask ourselves, if I were to insert my name, where the word love is, how am I doing? Can I say it's true? And as we're reading this message, maybe even in the beginning, as we were reading through the passage, you might have just felt this tension, this tension that we read this Love List, and we know, man, this is possible to pursue, but this is also impossible to perfectly fulfill. And this text stands kind of as a mirror for us to look and see with our lives, what's not matching up? What do we do when it's hard to love the people in our homes? What do we do when it's hard to love the people in our church? And if we're honest, what do we do when it's hard to love God?
35 · Shifts the discourse from imperative (what we must do) to indicative (what love has done for us), beginning a gospel proclamation that personifies love as speaking directly to the listener, declaring their value and Christ's willingness to die for them
And I love what Paul does here. Absolutely brilliant. You know, oftentimes, instead of hearing what we need to do better, how we need to love better, we often need to hear what has love done for us. What has love done? The Bible says this. Love says, I hear you, and I understand you. Love says, I know you all the way through. And despite your deepest fears and mess ups, you are absolutely not nothing. Love says you are highly valuable. Love says, you are worth giving. Everything I have, love says, I would die for you.
36 · Extended personal narrative about the birth of the preacher's son Bodhi and the family's three-month relocation to Corpus Christi during his medical crisis
I remember about five years ago when I first became a dad. I couldn't explain what happened. It was almost like it just happened so quickly. But the first time I held my son, I had this instantaneous, insane, fierce amount of love for this little baby that I just met 3 seconds ago. I love this baby. There was nothing I wouldn't do for this little child. And so when our son Bodhi was airlifted to Corpus Christi, it was no small thing to just pause life, to pack up our whole family, to leave El Paso and live in Corpus Christi for three months. It was a sacrifice for our whole family, but it was a no brainer. We love this kid. We love Bodhi. We wanted to be there for our son when he was suffering. There wasn't anything we weren't willing to do, no sacrifice too great to show our love to our son. We wanted to let him know we're with you. We're not going to be away from you. We are here, son. We would never leave you behind, no matter how bad his heart got. And we would stay there until he came home with us to El Paso or until he went home with the Lord.
37 · The personal story becomes typology: just as Alec left home to be with his suffering son, Jesus left heaven to suffer for his children
And while I was in Corpus Christi, the Lord, in his kindness, revealed something to me about his love for us. And I thought, Lord, you left your home. Lord, you left everything to be with your children, and not only to suffer with your children, but to suffer for your children. Lord, you did everything, everything required, everything needed so you could bring your children home. If you don't have Jesus in your heart, if you are not following Jesus with your life, please listen to this. This passage tells us that Jesus looks at all of our issues. He looks at all of your unloveliness, all of your mistakes. And he doesn't just say, I would die for you. He says, I did die for you. God, whose very essence is love, sent his son to our broken, unloving world. And Jesus willingly comes, and he says, I became nothing so that you would know you are not nothing. Jesus says, I gave up my body so that I would gain everything in you. Jesus says, see my patience. See my kindness toward you and your rebelliousness. See my faithfulness, my commitment, my actions of love for you. See that I have bore agony and pain for you. So see that I have endured the cross because of my love for you. He says, you deserve God's wrath because he is holy and just. But I stood in front with you, in front of you so you would be forgiven, so I could receive the wrath you deserved, so you wouldn't have to absorb it. He says, I did that for you. And here's a hope we have. He says, since I have defeated death, my love will never fail you. Here's the reality. We are all looking for love that never fails and love that will love us despite our sins and brokenness. And the Bible says you don't have to look any further. He says God's love is available for you today. In all your empty pursuits, God has been there the whole time. Will you ask Jesus to invade your heart, say, lord, invade me with your love?
38 · Direct pastoral address acknowledging Christians' tendency to drift from gospel centrality, diagnosing religious autopilot as love displaced from the center to the margins, and prescribing vertical recalibration (remembering God's love) as the fix for horizontal relational dysfunction
I hope as christians, we never move on from God's undeserved but freely given love. We are so forgetful. We always need a reminder of the proper place, of where God's love is to be in our hearts. It belongs in the center of everything. And maybe you're here today and you're like, man, I've just been going through the religious motions. I have been just on autopilot. And the love that ought to be in the center of everything you do has been pushed to the edges. On those days when we gather on Sundays and we are in our community groups and we have not one loving thought in our minds for others, might we be needing that reminder of God's love for us if the horizontal plane of relationships is off with one another? Perhaps we need the vertical relationship to fix that if we are to serve with love.
39 · Application reorders the Christian life: before any action step, return to the indicative—remember what love has done
Guys, the first step is not an action step to doing something. The first step is pulling love off of the shelf and remembering what love has done for us. Here's the reality. Agape love does not come naturally to us because of our fallen nature, because of sin, we are incapable of producing such a love perfectly. But if we are to love here and now on earth, as God loves that love, that agape love, we need to constantly run back to the source of unending love. His love for us enables us to love one another. And when our love reserve runs low, the gospel tops us off every time Jack Hiles says this. I cannot love you as I love myself until I love God as I ought to love him. For those who are here today, sitting in your seats, hearing about God's love for possibly the first time, you might be wondering, man, this all sounds great. This all sounds good. But will this last? Is this a temporary thing?
40 · Signals the transition to the third major section of the sermon addressing verses 8-13 and the eschatological permanence of love
Paul concludes his love discourse by writing of its permanence in, .3 unending love. Starting in verse eight.
41 · Exposition begins with verse 8's climactic declaration—love never ends—answering the permanence question emphatically, then contrasts love's endurance with the cessation of spiritual gifts (prophecy, tongues, knowledge), which are provisional
Love never ends. That question we just asked, will God's reserve of love ever run out for me? No. It's unending. It's immeasurable, it's steadfast, it's enduring. It never fails. It will remain, he continues in verse eight. As for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they will seize. As for knowledge, it will pass away.
42 · Acknowledges the apparent left turn in Paul's argument (from present ethics to eschatology) and explains his hermeneutical strategy: Paul will use the eternal perspective to reorder present priorities—what lasts forever should shape what we emphasize now
Okay, it seems like he took a sharp left here. What is Paul doing? Paul is going to take us to an unexpected place. Okay. And he's going to give us a refreshing perspective for how we love and serve one another today. So what he's going to do, he's going to inform our minds by taking us away from today, placing us in the realm of eternity. He's going to ask, what is still here? What is not here, and then he's going to push us back into today and ask, okay, how do we do something differently? What changes? What adjustments do we need to make?
43 · Exposition of verses 8-9 clarifies that spiritual gifts will cease not because they are defective but because they are partial—true but incomplete glimpses of reality, which will be unnecessary when the complete comes
So he begins by telling us what's not going to remain forever. And he says, spiritual gifts. In verse eight, he looks at these three gifts that the Corinthians have placed. So much emphasis, so much focus on prophecies, tongues and knowledge. And he says, these two will pass. Why? Because they are partial. They're incomplete. In verse nine, he says, for we know in part and we prophesy in part what Paul is saying. He's not suggesting that the prophecies uttered are mixed with error and are partially correct, partially incorrect. No. His point is that neither are exhaustive. The knowledge we enjoy right now as christians is true, but it's not complete yet. It's just a glimpse of what we will experience when that knowledge is complete forever.
44 · Exposition of verse 10 identifies 'the perfect' as eschatological completeness arriving at Christ's return, not some intermediate state
The original language for the phrase they will pass away, they will seize, is often used in Paul's other writings when he's writing within the scatological context. So what he's talking about is in the next stage. Here's what's going to happen, and here's what's happening now. Here's what's going to happen in the next age. So the next age begins. In verse ten, he says, when the perfect comes, the partial will pass. All these things will pass. And by perfect, he's referring to another greek word that means completeness. So when completeness, when perfect Shalom will arrive, he says it's when Jesus comes back to take his children home. When Jesus comes again, all, everything will pass. The partial will be no more. But until then, we live in the partial. So Paul even alluded to this in chapter one, verse seven, when he says that we are not this church and the church today, we are not lacking in any gift as we wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ. So until Jesus comes, whenever that day comes, the Holy Spirit will continue to give out gifts to empower his church for the common good. But Paul is trying to help us see that as great as the gifts are, they are just provisional. They are just partial.
45 · Exposition of verses 11-12 unpacks Paul's two analogies for the present-age-to-age-to-come transition: childhood to adulthood, and seeing dimly in a mirror versus face-to-face sight
He's trying to distinguish between this age and the age to come. So he gives us some illustrations to help us try to wrap our minds around this. He says in verse eleven, when I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. And when I became a man, I gave up childish ways in verse twelve. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
46 · Synthesizes the eschatological vision into a doctrinal claim: spiritual gifts become obsolete in eternity because the church will be built up directly by God's presence
What Paul is saying is this, when we are with Jesus forever, we're gonna look back at our lives here on earth the way we as adults look back at our childhood when we are with Jesus, face to face. Guys, spiritual gifts are not going to be needed. They're not going to be necessary. Why? Because we will forever be built up as the church by the presence of our perfectly loving father. He's saying the gifts won't last because they're not going to be necessary. But what will last, Paul is getting to, is love. His love will be among us. It will be through us, around us, behind us, in front of us. We will live in his love, fully known by his love, fully embraced in his love, face to face with his love. Paul likens this now like we see partially looking through, like an old antique mirror. You're like, I could see it, but it's still a little hard to see. He's like, that's he's describing this time. Now we can kind of see it, but not really. But he says, then on that day, we will see fully and clearly, face to face with Jesus. Now we see partially, then fully. And what Paul is saying is, on that day, we will not just be known by God, we will ourselves know God face to face.
47 · Application draws the logical conclusion from the eschatological perspective: if love is what endures forever, it makes no sense to neglect it now in favor of gifts that will pass
Now, before we close. Yeah. One more thing. So what Paul is trying to do in this third section, he's just trying to help us see the broader perspective. He says, look, what's going to remain is love. It wouldn't make sense to be here and now, neglecting the thing that's going to be there forever. He says, don't forget the thing. Love that will never end. Don't forget it here and now. Don't neglect it. Don't leave it on the shelf, because at the end of the day, our gifts won't last, but God's love will remain.
48 · Brief contemporary worship song quotation (not attributed by author name) expressing eschatological longing—the day we see Jesus face-to-face, know him fully, and worship as one
So, before we close, on my drive this morning, I was listening to a song about that day, this day when we will be with the Lord. The lyrics say this. On that day, we will see you shining brighter than the sun on that day, he says. We will know you as we lift our voice as one. Till that day, we will praise you with your never ending grace, he says. And we will keep on singing here and here on that glorious church.
49 · Final application charges the congregation to keep eternity at the forefront of present practice
May that day be at the forefront of everything we do as christians here and now. In this age. Church, God does not neglect that ingredient that's sitting on the shelf, because that ingredient, love, is what makes the church the church. Love is the thing that will take us home. Love is the thing that will endure. Church, rehearse the love of God for you daily because that love will never end. May we at cross of grace worship with love. May we serve with love. May we disciple one another with love. May we proclaim the gospel with love to our city. And may we strive to live the more excellent way, because as we do that today, we're just rehearsing for what we'll be doing in eternity.
50 · Closing prayer synthesizes the sermon's movements—amazement at Christ's servant love, petition for the church to serve with love rather than seeking to be served, intercession for those discouraged by their lovelessness, prayer for those wounded by unloving Christians, and commitment that Cross of Grace's service would be fueled by God's love
Pray with me. Heavenly Father, we were just amazed at your love for us. We were amazed at the example you set for us that, Jesus, you came not to be served, but to serve and to give your life as a ransom. And Lord, you did that perfectly with love. Lord, would you help us as a church family, come not to be served on Sundays, not to be served at community group, but to serve and to give our lives to one another with love. And father particularly, I want to pray for those who are discouraged by a particular area where they feel like, man, I'm just lacking love in that part of my life. Would for all of us, would you bring to light those areas that we lack love. And Lord, would you bring us to a time of confession and repentance and help us see our need for you. Would help us to see that we need you to love our spouse as well. We need you to love our children. We need you to love the people in our church. So, Lord, would you help us to lift our eyes from ourselves, Lord, and to fix our eyes on you and your eternal love? Lord, would you comfort those who are discouraged today, Lord, and remind them that while they were sinners, you still came and died for them. Lord, thank you for your enduring love. Lord, I also want to pray specifically for those who have been hurt in the church by unloving people. Lord, would your wounds on the cross heal and restore their wounds? Lord, would you remind them of your love for them? Lord, as a church, may your love be what fuels our love for one another. Father, help us not to neglect love while we serve the Lord, to serve in your love, with your love. Thankful for your love, for your mercy, and for your kindness to us. Pray this all in Jesus name. Amen.