Two Journeys

Jesus prepares His disciples for their imminent separation from Him by promising the Holy Spirit, and the indwelling presence of the Trinity. But this is only given to those who love God and obey His commands. The entire section highlights the key connection between love for God and obedience to His commands.

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Pastor Andy Davis preaches an expository sermon on 1 Corinthians 13:8-13. The main subject of the sermon is the loving nature of heaven.

 Well, I don't think it's an overstatement for me to say I've been looking forward to preaching this sermon for five years. I've been working on heaven, on a book on heaven and thoughts on heaven, and it all began with me reading Jonathan Edwards meditations on the end of 1 Corinthians 13, a 40-page message that Edwards wrote, 40 pages entitled Heaven is a World of Love. Now, you're gonna get a thin extract of that over two sermons, but I have such an electric feeling in my heart today, such a joy to be able to deliver this to you so that you might be buoyed as I prayed a moment ago, that you might be filled with hope, you might be filled with energy and joy and be able more and more to live a life worthy of the calling that you've received, to be strengthened in hope, and be able to do the good works God has for you to do, speak more about that at the end of the message. So as we look at 1 Corinthians 13, we reach the end of this chapter, Paul's language just seems to elevate into the heavenly realms, he's speaking of the eternal future of love, he has spoken and taught us that all spiritual gifts are temporary, they all have a temporary function in the saving work of almighty God and the human soul. They play a vital role, the spiritual gifts do, in delivering truth to individuals through faith in Christ, but when Christ returns and when he ends this world, and when he ushers the elect into the new heaven, new earth, the new Jerusalem, which will be our eternal home, all of the spiritual gifts will be obsolete at that time, even faith and hope will be obsolete, or we could say fulfilled by the reality of heaven, but love will remain eternally.

So Edwards, as he was working on Charity and its Fruits finished with this work: Heaven is a World of Love. I wrote out something like 25 pages of handwritten notes. I sent a photo of it to a relative, I won't say her name, but she said that I'm a mad scientist. Alright, so all I could do is just take these notes and say, "Wow, what Edwards does is quite remarkable,” and he just works and works and works on this theological exegetical theme, and he uses reason and he continues with this methodology and said, “I want to take that methodology and apply it as well." Now, my angle of the book I'm writing asserts that a large part of our experience of the glory of God in heaven will be looking backward at history, that we'll be looking back at what God has done to assemble the multitude from every tribe, language, people, and nation. How they got there, what God did to get all of us there. Edwards doesn't even mention that or even allude to it, but what he does do is he takes us effectively on an exegetical, theological rational tour of heaven, and he gives us those 40 pages on heaven as a world of love. And so what I'm gonna do is be leaning on him this week and next week. I do urge you to read it. I'm giving you right now my official massive footnote, so I'm free from plagiarizing. If you go this afternoon and say, “No wait, wait, wait, pastor said this, so he got it right from Edwards.” That's exactly where it came from. I remember I was at a conference a number of years ago, this was kind of funny, and it was R. C. Sproul, who's since gone on to be with the Lord, and John MacArthur, and John MacArthur sermons are all over the country, and I used to lean on them and just love him, grace to you. He got a letter from a woman in San Antonio that was very angry at Jonathan Edwards- I'm sorry, not Edwards, angry at John MacArthur because he was consistently using this woman's pastor’s sermons and not giving any credit. And so R. C. Sproul introduced then, John MacArthur saying, "And now here's Pastor John with yet another message from that pastor in San Antonio." So I'm going to do the reverse thing, and I'm going to say, I'm giving all credit for the structure and the approach to Jonathan Edwards, and my desire here is that as I talk about heaven as a world of love, it'll stimulate you to heavenly meditation and to a more heavenly lifestyle, that as much as possible you will, by the power of the Spirit, begin or more and more live a life of love because you have understood what heaven will be like, and that's my desire. And beyond that, that buoyed strengthened by hope, you will do the good works God has left you here on earth to do, works of personal holiness in which you are growing in grace and the knowledge of Christ and works of ministry to other people, both the Christians and non-Christians, that's what God's left you here to do, for his glory, and that you would be energized to do that.

Let's do some brief exegesis on 1 Corinthians 13. Paul has been showing the superiority of love to all spiritual gifts, so much so that even if you have the extreme display of every spiritual gift, if you could speak in the tongue of men and even of angels, or if you have the gift of prophecy and you could fathom all theological truths, nothing was a mystery to you, you have that level of theological knowledge, or even if you could die as a martyr, giving away your body to the flames after having given away all your possessions to the poor and needy, even if you did all of these things, but if you had not love, you would be nothing, you would accomplish nothing for the Church of Christ and you would gain nothing in terms of heavenly rewards. That's how important love is in all of these things. He then goes on in the chapter to give 15 descriptions of love, some of them positive, but most of them are negative. Look at verses 4-8, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails.” So over the last number of weeks, we've walked through each of those and talked about them, and Paul having described therefore what love is and what it isn't, or what love does do and what love doesn't do, he then speaks of the limitations of the spiritual gifts, remember this chapter 13 is right in the middle of a three chapter treatment on spiritual gifts, and he wants them to understand how limited those gifts are, and that even the best of us, in the highest level of knowledge that we gain of God through the spiritual gifts, is like we're speaking baby talk compared to what we will be like when we get to heaven. And I felt that as I was hearing Andy read that text, I was thinking, “I'm about to get up and do a little more baby talk babbling with you through this sermon, that you would all continue to think you're limited, immature and imperfect to some degree, thoughts about God.” because it's the best we can do. It's what we have now is to see through a glass darkly like we're squinting in a mirror, and we get a little bit of a distorted view of God, it's not a perfect view, but when we get to heaven, it will be a mature perfect view.

Now again, as I said last week, not that the words of the prophets or the apostles are flawed, there's nothing wrong with scripture. All Scripture is God-breathed. It's a perfect, flawless like silver refined in a furnace of clay, purified seven times over. Every assertion, every propositional truth taught in scripture is true and valid, but the depth and the dimensions of our knowledge of God are as nothing compared to what we would have when at last we see God face-to-face. And we know him fully, even as we have been fully known. And we talked about that last time. So having done that, overview and some introductions, let's get to what Edward shares, the insights that came from him in 1738, 282 years ago. And he divides his essay into six headings, first, the cause and fountain of the love that is in heaven. Secondly, the objects of love that is in heaven; thirdly, the subjects of that love that is in heaven; fourth, the principle or nature of that love that is in heaven; fifth, the circumstances in which heavenly love will be exercised, expressed and enjoyed in heaven; and sixth, the happy effects and fruits of that love that is in heaven. That's his whole essay. We won't get to all of that today, but God willing, over these two weeks, we'll look at it, so let's walk through it.

Now, before we do, I wanna say this about reading something written by Jonathan Edwards, his language is not easy to understand, he's very philosophical, he writes at a high level. And he works and works and works the details. And he begins with things that you're like, you feel are a no-brainer, and he adds some more no-brainer things, and he adds some other kind of obvious things and more and more obvious things. And before you know it you're in a whole different place than you ever were before, you're wondering how you got there, and every step has been supported by careful reasoning and by scripture, step by step, suddenly your eyes open and you're in heaven as a world of love, thinking thoughts you've never thought before. So you have to be patient, because he works it and works it, he's a very diligent laborer, he is skillful in what he does, that whole process reminds me some of CS Lewis's Lion, Witch and Wardrobe, some of you have read that story, many of you know about it, so a wardrobe for us Americans is a closet, like a walk-in closet, probably stand-alone thing, and some kids are there in this mansion, it's during war time years and they're playing hide and seek, and so a kid goes into the wardrobe, into the closet and hides, close the door shut and feels the garments, the coats and all that sort of stuff, brushing on the face and goes further and further and further back in, and then suddenly it's not coats anymore, it's like you're feeling branches on your face and it starts to feel cold, it's like Winter, and then next thing you know you're in another world. You're in Narnia in that particular book, you've moved through it, so that the wardrobe is like a portal to another world. And so it is with the kind of meditation that Edwards does, he's using scripture and put things together in such a way that he makes these confident assertions and you wonder where he gets it, but you can see by the process and you've moved through into heaven as a world of love. Edwards takes seeing through a glass darkly and steps through that looking glass into another world, and that world is defined by theology and by exegesis of scripture and reason, logic.

Now, let me stop right here and say, I do not enjoy books that are written about heaven, that are based on near-death experiences. Have you seen some of them? You know what I'm talking about? It's what they call as genre, heavenly tourism, and I have all kinds of things I could say about those things, but that is not my methodology, not this morning, not in the book I'm writing, not at all. It's a little bit hard because the publisher that's publishing my book also publishes one of those books, but another comment for another day, I guess we can have it- me and that author can have a debate. The problem is that the heavenly tourism books and the near death experiences don't corroborate with one another, there's not any unified system of truth, because they're basically just people's dreams, things that they have experiences. So for me, it's all about scripture and what we can deduce from scripture and put together, that's the work of theology, so let's begin.

 The cause and fountain of that love in heaven, the cause and fountain, the God of love himself dwells in heaven. God himself is the cause and fountain of the love that we will experience in heaven. Heaven is the place where God dwells and where he most clearly reveals himself. The new heavens and the new earth, and the new Jerusalem will glow and be completely illuminated and will radiate with the glory of God. So Heaven is a world of love, because the God of love especially dwells there. Now, of course, you will say, "But God is omnipresent. There was nowhere you can go in the universe that God does not exist.” Psalm 139 clearly asserts this, "Where can I go from your Spirit? Where can I flee from your presence? If I go up to the heavens, you are there,” if I go down to the depths, you're there, if I go to the far side of the sea, you’re there. God's everywhere, that is true, but God relationally, especially chooses to reveal himself in one place or in some special places, more than another, like Moses of the burning bush, "Take off your sandals, for the ground on which you are standing is holy ground.” 100 feet over isn't. God is choosing to reveal himself there at the burning bush.

So in the Old Testament, God was in that sense, more in Israel than he was any other nation on earth, and he was more in Jerusalem than he was in any other city in that nation of Israel, and he was more in the temple than he was in any other building in Jerusalem. And he was more in the Holy of Holies than he was at any other part of the temple, and he was more above the mercy seat then he was any other place in the Holy of Holies. But God is more in heaven than he is in any place we've ever experienced on earth. Heaven is God's throne, his dwelling place. Now, I believe in the eternal future, where there's the sense of the new Jerusalem descending out of heaven, prepared. I have a sense then with the throne of God seated right in the middle, that heaven and earth will become one, because God will dwell right in the midst of his people in the new heaven and the new earth and they will, in that sense, become one and then will be fulfilled what we pray in the Lord's prayer, "May your will be done on earth as it is in heaven". There'll be a unification of heaven and earth.

Well, since God is a God of love, so heaven then will be a world of love, a concentrated experience of love, God the perfect source and fountain of all love. For it says in 1 John 4:8, "God is love.” Now, you should meditate with me on the difference between “God is love” and “God is loving.” We can be loving, but we're not love. God is love, and he is loving, and he is loving because he is love. And, therefore, that's the sense that Edwards means, that the source, the fountain of love that will make heaven a world of love will be God because God will be there. All true love ultimately has its source in God the Almighty, the creator of all things. Now because God is all-sufficient, the uncreated Creator of all things, he will be a limitless source of love. The love that fills heaven will never end, even out to eternity. It'll be full. It’ll be eternal. It'll be overflowing. In this sense, it's very much like the river of the water of life in Revelation 22:1-2, it says, "There the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city.” So there's this limitless water supply, the river of the water of life coming from the seat of God, never ends. We can easily then in our minds move over and then extend that to love, that God just flows out love, limitless source of love from the throne of God forever and ever. And this river you could picture as in the strange vision in Ezekiel flows deeper and wider and broader as it goes, until you end up with this picture of an ocean of love in which we will be saturated and immersed and picture- I picture swimming in it.

Now, the love that we will experience in heaven is relational, person to person, because it's based in the Triune God, the Trinity is a God of love, has always been a God of love. We believe as Christians in the Father, the Son and the Spirit, one God in three persons. And so the relational aspect: Father to Son, Son to Spirit, Spirit to the Father, and the inter-Trinitarian relationship is a pattern of the love we will experience in heaven. The Father loves the Son and the Son loves the Father, and the Father loves the Spirit and the Spirit loves the Father and the Son loves the Spirit, and the Spirit loves the Son. There is that perfect, full relational love that was happening before God said, "Let there be light," before God created anything. So we should know, and we do know, that God did not create anything out of neediness or loneliness or emptiness, but out of fullness, he has always been a full being of love.

Now, the persons of the Trinity are infinitely dear and precious to one another with an incomprehensible love flowing from one person to the other and back again, a fullness of love. The Father loves the Son with a perfect love. In fact, you can't measure the depth of the Father's love for the Son, I picture it as the sun out in outer space, it's just radiant and powerful and glowing and never ending, that is the zeal, the energy, the power that the Father has in his love for his Son, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” All of those assertions made by the Father are great under statements, infinite understatements, "This is my Son, whom I love; with him, I am well pleased.” Infinitely well pleased. But the Father extends his love for the Son to us amazingly. He will love us as he loves his son. It's hard to believe, but he does. And Jesus will too, the Son, Jesus Christ loves the Father and showed his love for the Father by obeying him perfectly, even to death, even death on a cross. That's how much he loved his father. But he extends that love horizontally to us, he loves his bride, the church, he died for her, he cherishes her. Jesus is perfect in love for the bride. The Holy Spirit is the one who has delivered this love to our hearts for the entirety of our Christian lives. The Holy Spirit is the delivery system of the inter-Trinitarian love. The love that Jesus has for you has been delivered to you by the Holy Spirit. As it says in Romans 5:5 that, “God has poured out his love into our hearts by the Holy Spirit whom he has given us.” So if you're a Christian today, you sense and you feel the love that God has for you because the Holy Spirit has delivered that love that the Father has through the Son, Jesus Christ, to you. Also Galatians 5:22, it says, "The fruit of the Spirit is love.” almost feel like you can stop right there, that says it all, but there are other details as the fruit of the Spirit goes on, but he delivers love. 

 So heaven is a world of love because this perfectly loving triune God is a God of love. Second main heading: the objects of love in heaven, so that is what we will love in heaven. There will be nothing but lovely objects in heaven. Everything in heaven will be lovely, perfect in form and function. There'll be nothing odious, there'll be nothing ugly or blemish, or disgusting, or malformed or corrupt, or diseased, or repulsive, or broken, or dark or evil or wicked in heaven, but all of that will have been healed, transformed, weeded out, as it says in Revelation 21:27, "Nothing impure will ever enter it, nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful, but only those whose names are written in the Lamb's Book of Life.” All the angels of heaven will be holy and good, and glorious and radiant, filled with love for God and for Christ. All of the evil angels, including the devil himself; will have been weeded out and thrown into the lake of fire for all eternity. The only people permitted in that world, as Revelation 21:27 clearly says, will be the redeemed, those who have been made perfect and glorious by their faith in Jesus Christ, redeemed from every tribe, language, people, and nation. Those are the only people that will be there. Therefore, there'll be no hypocrites, no false professors of Christianity, no nominals, there'll also be no open rebels, no one who follows false gods and goddesses or demonic religions, all of those have been converted if they are elect before the foundation of the world, or they've been weeded out by the judgment of God. So only perfectly delightful beings will be in heaven. Not only so, but the redeemed themselves will be perfectly lovely, radiantly glorious. All the redeemed in heaven will be perfectly lovely, radiant, beautiful; for Jesus said, “Then the righteous will shine like the sun in the kingdom of their Father,” Matthew 13:43. So if I can say to you, your best days are yet to come. You are coming to a world where you, if you are a genuine believer in Christ, will be radiant and glorious and you will shine like the sun in the kingdom of your Father.

Now, this present world is flawed and imperfect, even the sun has sunspots, in the same way in this world, even the most eminent saints have flaws and imperfections and failings. As James said very plainly, we all stumble in many ways. And David said, “My sins are more numerous than the hairs of my head.” But in heaven, the saints will all have been glorified, perfectly conformed to Christ, mentally, morally, emotionally, volitionally, spiritually in every way we will have been conformed to Jesus Christ. We will have gone beyond the finish line of our salvation and we will be perfectly conformed to Jesus forever. I can speak for myself, and probably for many of you; the greatest grief in my life is my own sinfulness, by far. I see the sinfulness of others, and it brings me grief, it's true, but that the Lord should have gotten so little return on his investment of me, after all these years, is a grief to me, and I think the Apostle Paul felt the same way because he just said, “I am the chief of sinners,” and you feel that as you go, but I am looking forward to a day when that will all be finished, aren't you? That you'll never sin again; never sin again. You will be beautiful and so will every one of your brothers and sisters in Christ, perfectly lovely. Love will be fulfilled in every single one of them. If you look at the list in verses 4-8, all of those problems will have been solved; some of it will be obsolete, praise God. No need to be patient with the brothers and sisters in heaven anymore, no need to not keep a record of wrongs 'cause they won't wrong you.

But you look at all the other things, you won't be envious, you won't be arrogant anymore, you will be perfectly other-centered in heaven, all of those things will be fulfilled in you in heaven, you'll get them all. Jonathan Edwards put it this way, “No string in the heavenly symphony shall vibrate out of tune. There will not be a single discordant note in the heavenly song of worship to the Lamb, everything in perfect harmony. The place itself will be beautiful, what you will see with your eyes will be radiantly beautiful, the new heavens and the new Earth shall be free forever from its bondage to decay. The creation shall be perfectly radiant; it'll be glowing with the glory of God and the details of creation, it will attract from us our love and delight continually whenever we look at it in heaven.” I can't wait to explore the new earth. I think it'll be very much like this present world, but no decay, no bondage to decay, but just beautiful and worthy of exploration. So also the city itself, the new Jerusalem will be radiantly beautiful and perfect, even the most spectacular city in this present age, think of the most beautiful city you've ever seen, the most breathtaking city. I've been to some really remarkable cities in my life. I've seen Paris called the City of Lights. I went up on the first level of the Eiffel Tower. That was enough for me. I have a kind of a marginal fear of heights, and you're like, you can see real good peripheral vision and down below you the whole time you're climbing, and it's like I know it's impossible to fall, but I was thinking these thoughts. Anyway, I got to the first level and I looked around and the sun was setting and the light started coming up and it was really beautiful. But even though as beautiful earthly city has a dark side, a dirty side, a filthy and nasty side, alleyways and garbage, crime and other things, but the New Jerusalem will be radiantly beautiful, it beggars description. How can you read Revelation 21? It's like, I have a hard time picturing this, but the beauty is indescribable and perfect. The things that we love most will be in heaven, the things that God put in our hearts, the things we love most as Christians have to do with the glory of God. So that's what you'll see in heaven, you'll see the glory of God in everything that you see all around you, so also the saints that we cherish most in lifetime will be there, and we will know them as such. That's essential to my book. No weird heavenly memory wipe. You'll know them as such, this is your spouse that you spent all those years with, this is your best friend who died seven years before you died, this is your grandmother who led you to Christ, all of these, you'll know them and you'll know others that you never met as such: Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as Abraham, and Isaac and Jacob. And you will know them based on their history, and I could go on and on, it's not my outline, I'm endangered, and I'm already passed, I'm already over. But just to know the selective way that God glorifies us, and then what about our sins and all that, if I ever finish the book, read it, you'll find out what I say about all that. But we will know each other as such, but perfected and holy. 

Thirdly: the subjects of heavenly love. Now, by this Edwards means the source of love in us, in other words: the ones who do the loving, the ones who do the loving, so that's both God and us. Let's talk about our hearts. All right, the heart of God, as we've said, is the original seat of love, the capacity to love. Love is in God as light is in the sun, as we've talked about. Not as the moon or the planets, which has a reflected light, you know, you look at the planets, you're not seeing- they don't generate light they reflect it, okay? The moon reflects light. And so it is. We don't generate- alright, God generates love. But beyond that, let's think more about God's love for us, God will be truly attracted to all the redeemed in heaven. He will love them, each one of them dearly and deeply and fully, none of the redeemed in Heaven will be merely tolerated by God or ignored by God or slighted by God, but God will have full, rich, comprehensive love to each and everyone of his redeemed children, he has graven them in the palms of his hands. They are each and every one of them the apple of his eye. All of them.

Now here's an illustration that I have, it's not in Edwards, but I thought of it, to illustrate this point: you could imagine some wealthy art collector, billionaire art collector who wants to collect as much art as he can in life, and so he has workers working all over the world to buy pieces of art for him, and he's given certain criteria, certain styles and all that, and it just runs like a machine, and his buyers are buying art that he never sees, and when they buy it they wrap it up in bubble wrap and put it in the warehouses all over the world, but his favorite pieces of art, the ones he has hand-selected, they are in his mansion on the California coast line, and he looks at them every day, and he cherishes them because a thing of beauty is a joy forever. That is not what heaven will be like when it comes to all the redeemed, where he has the really super ones right around him and then the rest he doesn't know anything about them. Rather, each and every one of the redeemed in heaven are his craftsmanship, his workmanship, his painting, his sculpture. He worked on every one of us. He knit us together in our mother's womb and then redeemed us and worked on us every day of our lives by the Holy Spirit, and now he has consummated that work and brought you into final perfection and glory, and he will cherish you individually and personally, he knows you by name. It says in Isaiah 43:1, “This is what the Lord says, ‘He who created you, O Jacob, he who formed you Israel, Fear not, for I have redeemed you. I have summoned you by name. You are mine.’” And again, Jesus says, “As a good shepherd [John 10:3] he calls his own sheep by name and leads them out.”

Let me give another opposite example of what it will not be like in heaven: sometimes a king or other may allow former enemies to live in his kingdom as a display of his benevolence. They might even be allowed to live in his capital city. He might even pay for their food, clothing and shelter out of the royal treasury, but the king has no desire for a relationship with them. They don't sit at the king's table, they have no access to the king, he doesn't want a relationship with them; they're in the city, that's true, but there is no connection at all, that is not what heaven is gonna be like for you and me brothers and sisters. Think about David with Absalom, remember how Absalom killed his half-brother, Amnon and then fled? And for years, he lived in exile, he wanted to come back, but his father never brought him back, David never bought him back. Finally, a prophet comes and says some things to him, gets David to bring his son back, he brings him back, but he didn't bring him back into the capital city, he doesn't bring him back to the palace, he’s just living there, and then Absalom gets restless and rambunctious and angry and burns Joab's field so he can get some access to his own father. Finally, he gets back in, but he's never welcomed back in. Isn't it incredible that we who were at one time rebels and enemies will be welcomed and dearly loved by an adoptive Father who wants an intimate relationship with every one of us for all eternity? So that's the love of the Father for each one of us.

Also the love of Christ, Christ delights fully and personally in each one of his saints, they are united to him, he is their head, we are his, the members of his body. He cherishes each one of us, he is the bridegroom and we are the bride and so the heart of Jesus expands horizontally to have an intimate and perfect love for you, so much so that married love is a mysterious picture, we are told in Ephesians, of the love that Christ has for his bride, the church. Every member of the church has that affection. Now, in the same way, the hearts of the saints and angels will be perfectly full of love, our hearts will be filled with love for God and for each other, they'll not be a single open or concealed enemy in our midst. No one will be out in the cold. No one shunned, no one outcast or lonely. 

Fourth: of the nature and degree of heavenly love. First, the nature of heavenly love: it is all together holy and divine, it's totally conformed to the love of God, it's not carnal, it's not lustful, it's not impure or corrupt. It is a love that we will have that will be pure as light. Our love for God will finally be perfected. Finally you will love God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength. You've yearned for it your whole life, but you've not been able to attain it because you're a divided being, so am I. But in Heaven, you won't be divided anymore; you will finally love your Heavenly Father perfectly. You will love him with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and all your strength. Not only that, your love for God will be based on a perfect knowledge of God. Jesus said, “Now this is eternal life, that they will know you, the only true God.” We will see Him face-to-face, and we'll know him fully as he is fully known. Now, Edwards does not mention this, let me interject it to you, this is really exciting, we will never, ever achieve omniscience. We will never achieve omniscience. You know what that means? Heaven will be pretty exciting. Like one pastor said, “Has it ever occurred to you that nothing's ever occurred to God?” That's the kind of thing that makes circuit breakers trip. Nothing's ever popped into God's mind, 'cause that means it wasn't there before. Omniscience means it's already up and running, every idea there could possibly be, that's what omniscience is. We'll never be omniscient 'cause we're not gonna become God. So what that means is heaven will be an exciting place of learning, you'll be learning the glory of God forever and ever, you'll meet some brother or sister in Christ who lived 500 years before you did, and you'll find out what he or she did for the glory of God, and you will love that person and learn and you will give glory to God and you'll find new aspects of God's glory forever. It will never end, friends, never end. And so it's all based on an ever expanding, ever-improving love for God, no missteps, no false steps, not false understand at every moment, you will have right thoughts of God, there's just more of them to come. More of them to come.

So the saints’ love for God in heaven will be pure and accurate based on truth, free from idolatrous conceptions and ever expanding. So also horizontally, our love for others will be perfected as well. The second great commandment will be perfected in heaven. All the redeemed will love all the other redeemed with a perfectly free love. We will be free from all evil motives, there'll be no base carnal lust, as I said, no selfish principles, there'll be no pride, no envy, no greed, and no boasting. We will also love the angels perfectly, purely and freely, we will not worship them, they're creatures, and we'll know that, but we'll see their glory, we'll see their elegance, their dignity, the way that they served God. Do you remember when Zechariah questioned Gabriel's message about his wife bearing John the Baptist in old age? It seemed like Gabriel took offence. “You don't seem to know who I am. I am Gabriel and I stand in the presence of God and my words are gonna come true.” Well, that's all gonna get sorted out in heaven, we'll understand who Gabriel is and what he did throughout redemptive history, and we'll give him the proper honor, but we will not worship him because we're just fellow servants with him and he with us.

What about the degree of our love in heaven? Our heavenly love will be perfect in degrees, simply put, we will love God more than we will love anything else, to love God more than you love- to love anything else, any created thing more than you love God is the essence of idolatry, we won't be idolaters in heaven. We will love God more than we will love the saints, we'll love God more than we will love the angels. We will love God more than we love anything. And get this, we will love God more than we love him now, more than you love him now, vastly more, like comparing a spark to a raging inferno, that's how much more you will love God in heaven. Our love for God is weak right now, but it's based on truth. As we get to heaven, we will see God and understand who he is and our love will be proportional. So we will love God and worship him and not worship any other creature, but all other created beings will have a proportional level of love, because they will have a proportional level of glory.

What is most glorious will be loved the most, and what is least glorious will be loved the least, but every glorious thing will receive its appropriate level of affection from the hearts of the saints, proportional love. So picture this, I have no biblical evidence that there will be wildflowers in the new earth, I just think there probably will be, so imagine you're walking through a new earth fields and you stop and you pick a new earth wildflower, and you will do what Jesus said in the sermon at the mount, “Consider the lilies of the field,” and you'll consider it with a perfect mind and you will give God directly glory for that picked wildflower. Then I imagine you'll drop it and move on with your heavenly life. And it could be that five heavenly minutes down the road, you'll meet some brother or sister in Christ who was a martyr for the gospel, who laid down his or her life so that Muslims, let's say, in some country might come to faith in Christ, and you will have a greater love and attraction to that person than you had for the wildflower, that's what I think Edwards mean by proportional love. Not everything is equally glorious, now, that is one of the most exciting and challenging things I learned from Edwards, there'll be differing levels of glory, even among people, differing levels of glory. That, I learned from Edwards about five or six years ago, is one of the most explosive concepts. I had a very simplistic theology of heaven, ran something like this, maybe it was like yours when you walked in here this morning: "I don't know, we die, go to heaven and we're happy. Let's eat lunch.” I think there's more that we could say about what happens after we die. We will die and go to heaven and be happy. Then I learned the doctrine of glorification. We'll shine like the sun and the kingdom- “Alright, so we'll die, go to heaven shine like the sun and be happy. Let's eat.” Look, there's a lot more that we could say, but there will be differing levels of glory, because it says in 1 Corinthians 15:41-42 that, “star differs from star in glory, so it will be with the resurrection from the dead.” star differs from star in glory. Edwards actually spends a great deal of time on the differing levels of glory for the saints in heaven and how heavenly love will be perfect in reference to that reality.

Now, glorification will drive away all enmity and distaste and coldness toward God, at every moment we will be ardent in our love for him, but it will also be going horizontally toward other saints, we will not envy other people their glory. So wherever you're gonna be on the hierarchy of glory, wherever, whatever place you'll have in that, you will not deal improperly with those above you in glory or those below you in glory, as in the words of 1 Corinthians 13, “You will not envy those above you, nor will you be arrogant toward those beneath you in glory.” And we're gonna totally delight in the honors and crowns and esteem that God gives to our brothers and sisters in heaven for the way that they served him on earth. And we just know, if you know anything about church history, there are some people that just paid more for the gospel than we did, they just did, they put their lives on the line and their blood on the line in ways we didn't. And so what that does for me, first and foremost, I am 100% fine with them having more glory and honor than me in heaven. I'm also motivated to do better now, in whatever ways I can be courageous and energetic and serve God now, I want to. But when I get to heaven, I'm going to honor those that are highest in glory with a proportional honoring, and I am free then to do some of that now. I can talk to some of my brothers and sisters now that are serving in ways that I think require a higher level of sacrifice than my life does, and tell them how much I honor what they're doing, and I'm not jealous in that sense, it's helpful, as Edward says, “It will not be a grief to any saint to see another saint elevated and honored above himself, actually it will draw forth greater love and admiration and honor because God has done it, and God has revealed this and is revealed and glorified by that person.” So first and foremost, we'll just think, “God did it, I'm fine with it,” that's how we'll be in heaven.

Now, we also will have, therefore, variable experiences in heaven. Not every heavenly experience will be the same. The varying level of glory concept opens up also the concept of varying levels of experiences in heaven. Edwards said this, "All shall have as much love as they desire and as great manifestations as they can bear, and so shall all be fully satisfied and where there is perfect satisfaction, there can be no envy." So here's my illustration, not Edwards, imagine an amazing, pure, rich, lavish feast, in which there are almost countless different numbers of dishes with different spices and cooked in different styles and the limitless supplies of each dish, and you're invited to the banquet table and you sit down to eat and you can eat as much or as little of each dish as you want and generally and totally as much or little food as you want, it's all up to you, and let's just take gluttony and set it off, no such thing as gluttony in this feast. So there it is, but as you're eating and eating, you get to a point where you're full and you push back away from the table, now you might have eaten just one dish, it's your favorite, and you just ate that, but then you got full and you're done eating. Or you might have been like a seven-year-old at Golden Corral and you got 16 different disparate things and put it all on your tray and who knows what you have, and you have chocolate pudding and pepperoni pizza and Salisbury steak and those little Gummy Worms and it just really- alright, so there's a heavenly version of that, so you're eating all these different dishes and there's a limitless supply of each of the dish, and when you get done, you're done. But people have different appetites.

So the most exciting thing for me about all this is you're actually how you're living now is affecting your heavenly appetite. The measure you use now is the measure you'll receive in heaven, the more self-denying and self-sacrificial and holy you are now the greater taste for God's glory you'll have in heaven, there is a link between the two. I think that's of the essence of heavenly rewards, rewards is all about experience with God. So, as I've said in one sermon years ago, how much heaven do you want? You show it by how you live, how holy you are, and how courageous you are with the gospel and the things that you do for the glory of God, how much heaven do you want, but in any case, once we all get there, there'll be no envy because you get to eat as much as you want of everything that's available there. And we'll have a perfect love for the saints in heaven. As Edwards said, "There is undoubtedly an inconceivable, pure, sweet, fervent love between the saints in glory, and the love is in proportion to the perfection and attractiveness of the objects beloved.” And the most glorious ones, amazingly, according to Edwards, will be the most humble as well, 'cause they'll be the closest to God, and they'll know how small they are, because they're that close to God. And so these that are the most esteemed have the seats at the right and left hand of Jesus, as was mentioned in the account, “To sit at my right or my left is not for me to give, is for those for whom they're prepared.” Somebody- there are people there. But they will be the humblest people in heaven, if you can imagine in some sense that, 'cause they will have a sense of their own smallness as creatures, and they will be delightful people to interact with in heaven. No arrogance at all. Edwards said this, "Such will be the sweet and perfect harmony among the heavenly saints, and such will be the perfect love reigning in every heart toward every other without limiter, alloy or interruption, and no envy or malice or revenge or contempt or selfishness will ever enter there. But all such feelings will be kept as far away as sin is from holiness and is hell is from heaven." 

 Alright, that's enough for now. Let's take some applications. If heaven is like this, how should you live now? That's the question that's in front of us, right? Let's begin by looking at 1 Corinthians 13 again and say, "Lord, would you please work this love in me, because this is what I'm gonna spend eternity being". So begin looking at your closest relationships, begin looking at your family relationships. Begin, you marry people, looking at your relationship with your spouse, are you loving your spouse as you will love him or her in heaven? And that's part of your inheritance. Ask the Holy Spirit, the deposit, the down payment, the one who gives heaven to you now, as much as he chooses to, give you as much heavenly love as you can possibly have for other people now, especially those that are in close proximity to you.

Secondly, see how happy must be those people that will be in heaven, how happy it will be to be there. I don't know about you, but I feel like I need some of that happiness these days. It's not been a happy year for many people and I think we need to drink at this fountain more than we do. So let these meditations make you joyful in the Lord, as the scripture says, “Rejoice in the Lord always.” Find in this meditation joy even when facing COVID 19 and systemic racism and injustice issues and poverty issues and all of those things, as you face these seemingly insurmountable intractable problems, let the meditation of your heavenly future give you joy, but it can't stop there. Let it give you energy, ambition, in a healthy way, drive to do the good works that God has called on us as Christians to do, we're left here on earth to do good works, having come to faith in Christ. That's it. And it's a matter of the two journeys of growing in holiness, putting sin to death, do it in light of eternity so I can have a great taste for you in heaven, give it to me now on earth, let it drive away earthly lusts and ambitions and corrupted desires and let me have a pure desire for God, but then beyond that, we as Christians are called on to go toward misery and suffering and alleviate it as best we can. One of the big charges that I've heard, I've watched a lot of documentaries on race relations in our country, it's been sad. It's been depressing. It's been educational. It's been hard to watch, but one of the charges made by some of the scholars, black scholars, who are not Christians and are hostile toward Christianity, is that heaven in particular saps people's strength to make any changes on earth. Let me tell you something right now: It ought not to! I think a healthy meditation on heaven should give you so much hope and robust energy that it will cause you to move out in the direction God wants you to go, and I don't know what that is, I don't know what your calling is, but God's position each one of you, to do good works for his glory. We're surrounded by lost-ness, by people who don't know the Lord. They're without hope and without God in the world. Be so radiant with hope that they ask you to give a reason for the hope that you have. But there are widows and orphans in their distress; we're called on, as James said, to help them. There are various wars going on that the world cannot solve, like war on poverty, war on racism, war on terror, all these war's on, how are they doing? Poorly.

But we know that the gospel has the answer. So we're called on to be salt and light, we're called on to do things that God's called on us to do, and so this meditation should give us energy to put sin to death, to be less selfish, and to see what ways God is calling on us to make an impact on the suffering in this world, and wouldn't it be delightful to take someone who's just wiped out by sin and depressed and hopeless and all that, and see them cross over into light and start teaching them these kind of things, let me tell you where you're headed, dear brother and dear sister, now that you've come to Christ, now that you've trusted in Jesus for the forgiveness of your sins, all your sins are forgiven. Guess where you're going, let me tell you something about it.

Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for the extended meditation we've had today, thank you for our brother Jonathan Edwards for things that he did years ago, almost 300 years ago. And I pray that you would take the truths that we've walked through today and press them in our hearts, let them transform us, let them move in us, help us to see you, Lord, as the source, the endless fountain of all true love there is in the universe, and help us to draw close to that and be transformed by it, and to go towards suffering, not away from it and to embrace difficult ministries that you've called us to, so that we can see people who are lost, find salvation in Christ, in Jesus’ name. Amen. 

A summary and restatement of Edward's famous sermon "Heaven is a World of Love" exploring the object, subject, and nature of heavenly love.

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Jesus sought to calm His disciples after their deep pain at the predictions of Judas’s betrayal and Peter’s denial. He focused their minds on heaven and on His own power and purpose in taking them there. Yet, there would be a journey to be traveled in Him, though they all knew the Way to the

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Pastor Andy Davis preaches on 1 Corinthians 13:8-13, and the everlasting nature of God's love.

So take your Bibles, if you would, and open 1 Corinthians 13. We continue to make our way through this incredible chapter. And as we do, we're led to consider this morning, what is excellent, the excellence of Christian love. The human heart is designed by God to evaluate everything it knows in the universe. We are designed to see what's around us, to understand it, and to evaluate it and to have a sense of excellence. A sense of good, better and best. It has been good, I think, for us to be able to continue to have some continuity and to do the live stream and to continue to be fed with the word. That was good. It's better to gather, even though awkwardly and weirdly, I don't know that anybody really thinks this is like the exciting, most beautiful way for us to worship or to sing. Wes, how did we sound? Awesome, okay, that was the only right answer, we sounded great. But there's good, there's better and then there's best. And we know that the best is yet to come. We are looking forward to the heavenly best.

Children as they grow have very limited sense of excellence, a sense, a limited sense of what's truly excellent in the world. You know, the law of supply and demand doesn't really register with them. You know, they'd rather have a Popsicle than the joy of having scripture unfolded to them. They'd rather be at an amusement park than come and sit on a pew, I'm sure. They don't really have a sense of what's excellent, and so also we grow and develop in our sense of the excellence of Christian things, we develop a sense of what is truly excellent in this world. For myself, I'm not really an art aficionado, but I was willing to stand in line at the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam to see a Rembrandt painting, The Night Watch, it's behind a big plexiglass wall, they're refurbishing it and they have a robotic machine on it, and they're working on it, but I was willing to do that, and I wasn't the only one, thousands of people willing to wait to see an excellent painting. And so it is with all of us, I think we would love to hear the most excellent music that there is played by an excellent symphony orchestra rather than something that's lower. This world is filled with 7.8 billion people and innumerable possessions that we have, countless human skills and attributes, measureless achievements, soaring accolades and honors, countless artifacts, and there's an array of excellence, an array of skill, an array of those possessions, a sense of what is the lowest, the mean level, and then on up.

The Apostle Paul puts before us in 1 Corinthians 13 what he calls the most excellent way, look at verse 31, 1 Corinthians 12:31, he said, “And now I will show you the most excellent way.” The most excellent way, the word way implies a pathway, a journey, a destination. It brings my mind immediately to John 14:6, where Jesus said, “I am the way and the truth and the life; no one comes to the Father except through me.” So we are on this journey, we're going from where we are to a destination, we're going to the Father, and Jesus is the way. Paul in this chapter points to what he calls the most excellent way, the most excellent way of life, and it's absolutely no doubt, tied in his mind to the most excellent man that ever lived in Jesus Christ. The way of love then is the most excellent way of life there can ever be, for love is the distillation of the Christian religion. Love is both the journey along the way, and it is the destination to which we are going. So in this chapter, this single chapter, 13 verses that we've been studying now for weeks, it's dedicated to this one proposition that love is the most excellent way for human beings, the most excellent human attribute.

Now, the whole chapter breaks into three divisions of this excellence, this is just kind of a quick overview of the whole chapter, we're gonna zero in on the third one, but first, all spiritual gifts are worthless without love. Secondly, all the excellent aspects of Christianity are summed up in and arise from love, and thirdly, love is eternal, but none of the spiritual gifts are. Now we're gonna spend our time on the third one, but let's walk through the first two quickly just by way of overview. First of all, all spiritual gifts are worthless without love. Look again at Verses 1-3, which you just heard read, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I'm only a resounding gong or a clanging symbol. And 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 have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.” So love must be truly excellent if it's absolutely indispensable to the proper use of spiritual gifts, it's the indispensable ingredient to all spiritual gifts, even the most extreme display of those gifts there has ever been in human history are worthless if there's not love.

Secondly, all truly excellent aspects of Christianity arise from love. The most excellent demeanors, the most excellent attitudes in the Christian life come from love, the most excellent works in the Christian life flow from love, so Paul then describes it both positively and negatively, been walking through this carefully over the last number of weeks. Look at verses 4-7 again, “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, it is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil, but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.” So anyone who is living this kind of life is living the perfect Christian life, when it comes to other people, they are long-suffering toward other sinners, they actively do good works of kindness toward them with a glad and gentle heart, they have a complete delight in the blessings that they see that other people have and they don't have. It doesn't bother them at all. They're glad that those people have those blessings, they have no covetousness inside them, conversely, their own blessings, they don't boast over them, they realize they're given by grace, and they know that they are a conduit of blessings, so that people who are loving like this want to use the temporal blessings they have to bless other people. They are truly humble toward others, they consider other people better than themselves, they consider other people's needs as more important than their own, they've been humbled before God the creator because they're creatures, and they've been humbled before Christ the redeemer because they are sinners. And so these loving people are deeply humbled. They're polished in their manners toward other people, they consider the needs of other people just in physical space and time, they're mannerly, they're not rude, and they expand their hearts to include others and find pleasure in blessing others. They are not all about “me.” They're delivered from “me,” they're delivered from selfishness, and they're not given to sinful selfish anger, they're not short-tempered, they don't have a short fuse, and they're also very quick to forgive, they don't keep a record of wrongs, they're free from bitterness.

They delight in righteousness. They delight in seeing the truth of God's word at work in people's lives, and like Jesus, they also hate wickedness and all that it does to people. They bear offenses without complaining, they believe the best about other people and are hopeful about what God's grace can do in a sinner's life. And therefore they're willing to endure whatever bad treatment they get from other people. Now you look at that, that's my own summary of where we've been, anything... Oh my, what a man that would be, who lived like that. What a woman that would be who could actually live that kind of life. That would be a perfect life when it comes to dealing with other people, especially other sinful people. Now, only one person in history has ever done this perfectly, and that's Jesus Christ. Isn't it wonderful that in the gospel, that perfect record of love that Jesus won by his life is given to us as a gift to wear like a robe of righteousness on judgment day, isn't that beautiful? The imputed righteousness of Christ is given to us as a gift, so that we will stand as though on judgment day, as though we have been as loving as that. That's what the imputed righteousness of Christ is all about.

 Now, the third aspect of the excellency of love we're gonna spend the rest of our time this morning on, and that is that love is eternal, but none of the spiritual gifts are. All of them are temporary, but love is eternal. This is the final step of Paul's unfolding the pure excellence of Christian love. Now, let's keep in mind that the Corinthians were very proud of their spiritual gifts. You get the sense of boasting over them, especially the showy gifts like prophecy and tongues, and so they were very proud of their gifts and they boasted over them. They probably boasted over everything that they had, and other people were envious and jealous and they would bicker and they were divided. They were a divided church. So Paul wants them to understand: all the spiritual gifts that they have and all of the roles that are connected with them are temporary, and not only are they temporary, but they are indeed a means to an end. There's an end that God has in mind. But love is eternal. It extends from the moment that you're converted to the end of your life here on Earth. It extends beyond that, beyond judgment day, beyond the second coming of Christ and on into eternity, and therefore it is the most excellent thing. It is the most excellent way. So let's walk through that and try to learn what Paul says.

First of all, love never fails, but all the gifts will cease. He just simply asserts it. Look at verse 8, he said, “Love never fails.” It's a simple assertion. In Verse 13, “Now these three remain [or abide], faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.” But conversely, all the spiritual gifts will cease, verse eight, “As for prophecies [he says], they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.” So those three, I think, stand and represent all the spiritual gifts, these three, all the spiritual gifts, are temporary, but love is the most excellent way because it is eternal, it's permanent. It never passes away. Now here, I do not want to take much of an off-ramp off of this text and discuss what's generally known as cessationism. Cessationism is the idea that the sign gifts, what we call speaking in tongues, prophecy, miracles, all of those gifts were temporary and ended with the completion of the New Testament canon. So that's, I believe, an off-ramp that John McArthur, my mentor and my other mentor, Jonathan Edwards, both take. And you're like, “You're a bold man if you're gonna walk away from those two great mentors.” I'm not walking away from them, I covered cessationism back in December and you can listen to that sermon at that point. I think whether those sign gifts continue or not is not settled from this chapter. I think what Paul's talking about goes far beyond the end of the first century, far beyond the end of the Apostolic Age, it goes on into the realm of perfection, and it goes on into the realm when at last we will see God face-to-face. It goes on into the realm of perfect knowledge, and so therefore, I don't really see the need to go into cessationism much at all, but I've covered that, etcetera. It's debatable, it's discussed, and pretty soon after a couple of sermons on heaven, we're gonna get to go, God willing, into 1 Corinthians 14 and talk about tongues and prophecy, and we'll have all kinds of fun doing that. So why don't we just wait on all that? But I don't think that this is clearly a cessationist text, I think that the text goes far beyond that.

So how is love permanent, actually eternal? Well, at the moment of conversion, God's supernatural love, divine love enters into your soul by the transforming work of the Holy Spirit and it never leaves. Once the love of God enters your life, at conversion, it will be with you forever. Now what happens at regeneration is the miracle of a transformation of your heart, so that the heart of stone is taken away, that unresponsive cold, hard resistant heart is removed and God puts a responsive, soft, yielded, submissive heart in instead. Without that, none of us gets converted. Now, at that moment, what happens is described in a lot of places, but 2 Corinthians 4:6 is my favorite. And 2 Corinthians 4:6 said, “For God who said, ‘Let light shine out of darkness,’ made his light shine in our hearts to give us the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Christ.” So God shines his own glory in his only begotten Son. In the record we have in Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John of Jesus' words, his actions, his demeanor, all of that a perfect record of his life, and so the Holy Spirit comes and takes that and sets it on fire inside your heart, you see a light, you see the glory of God, and your eyes, the eyes of your heart, are enlightened, they're open. That's faith, and you see the beauty of God in Jesus. And your heart is attracted to that, that is the love of God, and it's vertical. You are transformed from a God hater to a God lover, and that never changes, it'll grow, it'll develop, it'll never go away. Forever you will love God vertically, but then flowing out from that perfect vertical love that God works in us by the Spirit is the love for other people, horizontally, the second great commandment. And if there is no love, then there is no life. There has been no conversion, there has been no heart surgery; the heart of stone is still there. It says in 1 John 3:14, “We know that we have passed from death to life because we love our brothers. Anyone who does not love remains in death.” So that's horizontal. If you don't love others, if you don't love your brothers, you're dead in your transgressions and sins. If you say, if you claim that you love God and you hate your brother, you're a liar, 1 John says.

So this is of the essence of the transformation, God has put love for himself above all, first, and then secondly, love for others, and that divine love continues throughout the Christian life. The Holy Spirit enters into us at conversion, and he never leaves. And the fruit of the Spirit is love and you could say, and then all the rest, and maybe all the rest are just manifestations of different aspects of love. But love kind of sums all of it up, and as long as the Holy Spirit is in you, and he will never leave you, if you're genuinely converted, you will love, you will love God and you will love others, and this will go on eternally, our love will be perfected in heaven. Our love for both God and others will not cease at the end of our lives. Paul, at the end of this chapter, lifts our minds up above into the heavenly future that we're going to enjoy. Look at Verse 9-10, “For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, that when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.” So the perfection that Paul has in mind here is nothing less than heavenly perfection of seeing God face-to-face. Look at verse 12, “Now we see but a poor reflection as 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.” So that's our future. The thing that God told Moses on that mountain, “You cannot see me and live.” We will be able to see him and live and not just live but live eternally. We will see him face-to-face, so this is talking about heavenly glory, of heavenly knowledge of God.

Now, love extends into eternity and actually love will outlast even faith and hope, even faith and hope are temporary. Paul ends this chapter with these three great attributes of the Christian soul, verse 13, “And now these three remain faith, hope, and love, but the greatest of these is love.” and I'm adding the only eternal of the three is love. So spiritual gifts will pass away when this world ends, spiritual gifts may well pass away before then, may- some of them may have passed away, that's the very issue of debate with cessationism, that's true, but whether they do or not, spiritual gifts are not as important as faith, hope and love. A Christian actually may cease being able to exercise his or her spiritual gifts, my gift is preaching and teaching, I might have a stroke at some point and be unable to speak, and so I would not be able to minister my spiritual gift again. I might get to a place where I cannot really receive the benefits of other people's spiritual gifts; that might happen to me, those things do happen. A woman whose gift is hospitality may tragically lose her home and for a period of time be unable to host anybody. And so spiritual gifts are fragile, they are temporary, they are useful. But faith, hope and love are lasting. Now, while we live in this world, faith, hope and love remain every single moment of our Christian lives. Your faith in Christ is being sustained right now by the secret working of God's grace through the Holy Spirit in you. You're not on your own, concerning your faith, you don't have to maintain the fire of faith in your heart, you do need to keep believing in Jesus, but you will because Jesus is interceding for you at the right hand of God, that you will continue to believe and trust in him. And that's a beautiful thing, so that faith will be sustained, so also hope. Now, faith is the eyesight of the soul, by which we see invisible spiritual realities. By which we see in some sense Christ at the right hand of God interceding for us. But love is greater than faith, because actually faith produces, or is a means to the end of producing love in our hearts. Effectively, faith serves love. Also hope is a strong assurance in the heart that the future is bright based on the promises of God, that we're actually- we're looking forward to heaven. But we learn from scripture, and we're gonna learn more, God willing, over the next two weeks, that heaven is a world of love. And so hope is really ultimately all about love, we are going to be swimming in an ocean of love in heaven. I can't wait over the next two weeks, I could probably go 20 weeks, but I won't do that to you, to just describe what I mean when I think Jonathan Edwards means when he says that heaven is a world of love. But hope is all about that; we're going to a place where we will be loved and where we will love. And so hope serves love as well, and only love will come with us into eternity. When you breathe your last breath on earth and your soul departs from your body and you become absent from the body, but present with the Lord you won't need faith anymore. You'll be among those righteous people made perfect in the heavenly Zion worshipping God. You won't need faith. And the same thing with hope, you won't need hope. When the promises have been fulfilled, you'll leave hope behind. Romans 8:24 says it plainly, “Hope that is seen is no hope at all, who hopes for what he already has?” So you won't need hope in heaven. When the new heavens and the new earth come, and you're in your resurrection body, and you're surrounded by the glorious redeemed, they're shining like the sun in the kingdom of your Father. When all of the things that God has promised us in the gospel have come true, faith and hope will be fulfilled. Let's put it that way, you could say, obsolete, but I like fulfilled. Their need is done, but love will still be there, and not only that, but love is going to be developing for all eternity. You're gonna love more and more and more as time goes on. So faith and hope will not come with us into heaven, but love will really just be beginning there.

So all the graces of the spirit are temporary means to the end of love. We are gifted; we are blessed by the Holy Spirit. The third person of the Trinity has been delivering Christ to you from the moment of your conversion. He has been working powerfully and deeply. So I've said before, and I'll continue to say, you owe your salvation as much to the third person of the Trinity as you do to the second person. Jesus died for you, shed his blood for you, it's true, but you wouldn't care about that at all, if it weren't for the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit has been ministering inside you. He's been ministering a deep conviction of sin, you see the need for a savior, and you know that you can't survive judgment day if it weren't for Christ, you would most certainly be condemned for your sins, you would be- you would hear the dreadful words, “Depart from me, you who are cursed into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels.” You know you deserve it. Well, how do you know that? It's because the Spirit has convicted you of sin. You've seen that you've violated the laws of God; the Spirit's worked that conviction. And then the Spirit, as we've said, works an illumination of Christ to you, you see him as a savior, you see him as beautiful and attractive, you want him, you're drawn to him. You realize his death is really for you; it's your death. His life, his resurrected life is your life, you are drawn to him and connected to him by faith the Spirit has worked this. And you have a deep sense of the love of God in all of this, and these things continue every day of your Christian life here on earth, an ever-deeper conviction of sin, an ever-greater illumination of Christ going on through the ministry of the word, ever-deeper love for God and for others. These things continue; these are workings of the Spirit.

Now, the Spirit also uses spiritual gifts to help these things. So the gift of prophecy delivers God's word from heaven to earth. The prophets of olds heard God speaking words and they proclaimed them to their generations, some of those prophets like Moses and others, wrote down their prophecies that became the written word of God, the apostles were prophets in their writing ministry. And so we have the 66 books of the Bible, we have the perfect delivery system of the truth of God through the prophetic gift.

So also the spiritual gift of apostleship, an authoritative office that established the pattern of church life for generations to come, gave us the New Testament, the apostolic testimony to Jesus, written down in the words of the New Testament. The gift of apostleship and then the gift of evangelism brought the gospel message from Jerusalem through Judea and Samaria, and little by little to the ends of the earth. These spiritual gifts are a delivery system, the spiritual gift of tongues early on was a sign of supernatural activity, a sign that the Holy Spirit had descended on Cornelius and his family when they heard and believed, simply by hearing with faith. The spiritual gift of being a pastor, teacher, shepherd of souls, continues to this present day and you receive benefits from that every week- I just go back again in my heart to John 21, what Jesus said to Peter, “Feed my sheep.” So I get to do that to you, today. I get to do that week after week, to just feed your faith, feed your souls. And we need it, don't we? We need the word of God, we need to have our souls and so that spiritual gift benefits, and so also all of these gifts are gifts flowing from the mind of God through the ministry of the Holy Spirit, all of these things. But all of these means of grace are temporary, all of them, and none of them will be needed in heaven. Ephesians 4:13 speaks about the gifts he gives unto the apostles, unto the prophets, evangelists, pastors and teachers to prepare God's people for works of service so the body of Christ may be built up, listen to this: “Until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ.” So that word “until” means we need all of these gifts until we're perfect. And then we don't need them anymore. Jonathan Edwards put it this way, “It's like the fruits of the field and a farmer orchard, which need tilling and need rain and need sunshine until they're ripe, but once they're ripe and they've been gathered into the barn at harvest time, they need them no more.” And so it will be with all the spiritual gifts, no spiritual gifts in heaven. But all the means of grace have love as their final goal or their final end. What God is doing in salvation is ultimately working love in us. Edwards says the reason that gifts cease and love doesn't is that gifts are the means to the end of love that we would love. Love is the point of it all, and the gifts are the means the Holy Spirit uses to work love in us.

 Now, all earthly knowledge of God is limited, imperfect and immature. So that's what I get to do today. I get to give you limited, imperfect and immature knowledge of God as I preach. Isn't that exciting? I got up and I was thinking about this sermon, it's like “I get to do some more limited, imperfect and immature stuff.” But look at the verses, look at Verse 8-12, it says, “Love never fails, but where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be still; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now, we see but a poor reflection as 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.” So he zeros in on the spiritual gifts that are word-based knowledge gifts, tongues, prophecy, knowledge, these kinds of things are word-based.

So I was thinking about an illustration of this. How could I illustrate it? And a couple of years ago, Daphne and I went to the Southern Baptist Convention in Phoenix. It just so happened that Phoenix is near the Grand Canyon. Been there before, I wanted to take my daughter to see the Grand Canyon and I was thinking about, how could I describe in words sunset on the South Rim of the Grand Canyon? So I thought, well, maybe I don't need to. Maybe some really gifted word-based people have done that for us. So this morning, I'm there online trying to find if anybody has done it, so I have all these handwritten notes of people who have tried to describe the Grand Canyon. So listen to this, this is 1910, a guy named George Wharton James said this, “Though only 217 miles long, the Grand Canyon expresses within that distance, more than any one human mind has yet been able to comprehend or interpret to the world. Famous word masters have attempted it, great canvas and color masters have tried it, but all alike have failed, they know they cannot describe it, but they proceed to exhaust their vocabularies in talking about it and in trying to make clear to others what they saw and felt.” Or this one, “In the supreme flaming glory of sunset,” so what does that look like in your mind's eye? “Supreme flaming glory of sunset,” picturing that. “The whole canyon is transfigured as if all the life and light of centuries of sunshine stored up and condensed in the rocks was now being poured forth as from one generous fountain flooding both earth and sky.” Now that's pretty good. You picture it in your mind. This woman in 1897, Amelia Hollenback, went with her sister, she was visiting from Brooklyn, New York, they took an all-day dusty bumpy stagecoach ride from Flagstaff to the South Rim, and she wrote down her feelings when she saw... This is what she said, “There are many colored rock fragments strewn around and wild flowers and cacti and sagebrush and queer twisted cedars and pinions grow all about. Now, perhaps if you stood on these rocks just ahead, you might see better the way to go. You try it and then suddenly there IT is,” imagine "it" being capitalized, both the I and the T, “there IT is, the Grand Canyon, as if half the world has fallen away below your feet.” That's her description. Then Irvin Cobb, who was a humorist for the Saturday Evening Post, tried more of a Mark Twain approach, 1913, “It is generally conceded that the Grand Canyon of Arizona beggars description, I shall therefore endeavor to refrain from doing so. I realize that this is going to be a considerable contract, nearly everybody on taking a first look at the Grand Canyon comes right out and admits its wonders are indescribable and then proceeds to write 2000 to 50,000 words describing it. Speaking personally, I wish to say that I do not know anybody who has yet succeeded in getting away with the job.” All right, well, imagine Amelia going back to Brooklyn, New York, and all her friends wanna know, “What was it like?” “I can't describe it.” “Okay. Well, let's have some tea.” So we are just kind of word-based people, and God's given us the gift of language and we try to put things into words.

Friends, if the Grand Canyon is like that, how much more the new Jerusalem, the new heaven, new earth? God gave us two chapters, Revelation 21 and 22 that I've been meditating on almost daily for five years, and that's enough. What Paul is saying is, effectively, whatever knowledge you have of God and of his love and of his glory, it is immature and is incomplete. It is in that sense, imperfect. Now, prophecies are a source of knowledge about God and other people, when the prophet said, “Thus says the Lord,” they would speak and then the prophets would write down what they said, scripture is a flawless record of the prophetic gift. So also the knowledge that's based on the prophecies, the scriptural prophecies that have been delivered, is a gift to the church, the systematic theologians that mine out solid exegesis and put theological concepts together and weave them together in theology, that's a gift. Exegetists write commentaries on Romans or in 1 Corinthians, and they seek to teach the church and theologians weave these together into systems of truth so that we can learn everything that the Bible covers topically. The doctrine of God, the doctrine of man, of sin and of Christ, the doctrine of the church, of angels and demons, the future, the doctrine of ordinances, the doctrine of time and money, and government, and every topic addressed in the Bible. And this is helpful. It's beneficial. So when Paul says, “Where there is knowledge, it will pass away,” he doesn't mean that the truths that have come up out of scripture will in the end have been disproved or proved to have been false. It's not what he's saying. Jesus himself said, “Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away.” When we get to heaven we're not gonna suddenly find out there actually were many ways to God, and that Buddhism was a fine way to get to heaven, we're not going to find that. We're not gonna find that Jesus actually isn't the only begotten Son of God. We're not gonna find any of that. The Bible is perfect truth, and everything it asserts is true, but the gift of knowledge and the skills of sound exegesis, and the work of preaching and teaching like I'm doing right now, all of those things will become instantly obsolete the moment you see Jesus face-to-face. The moment you are in the presence of Almighty God and you see his glory with your own eyes, you will be transformed and you'll be made like him, for you will see him as he is. And all of the tributaries or delivery systems of truth you had while you were in this world will be as nothing compared to what you will get at that point, and not only that, your own minds and hearts will be transformed, you won't resist, you won't fight, you won't have ego problems, you won't have blockage problems, you'll just be ready to receive, you'll be ready to receive whatever God wants to teach you about himself, minds and hearts. You will understand God and you will delight in him in a perfect way.

So therefore, all Christian knowledge in this world is limited, it's imperfect, and immature. First limited, we know in part, and we prophesy in part. So that's the limitation. So like John 16:12, Jesus said, “I have much to say to you, more than you can now bear.” So you can't bear the whole truth, right now. The secret things belong to the Lord, but the things revealed belong to us. In heaven, he reveals everything.

Secondly, imperfect, when the perfect comes, the imperfect passes away. It's not faulty; it's just imperfect because of its limitations. It's incomplete. It's immature. And then he speaks of immaturity, “When I was a child, I thought like a child, I talked like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.” It's as though Paul is saying, that receiving the knowledge of God is mediated through prophecy, through tongues, through exegesis and preaching and teaching, is like a form of spiritual baby talk. We need it, we've gotta have it. Our souls are saved by it, by the baby talk. Have you ever talked to a little kid about their conceptions of God? It's really fascinating, isn't it? I remember talking to one, I think she's a little girl, she thought that God is like a big, huge giant who literally holds the world in his hands. So I was talking to Daphne about this this morning, I said, “Do you think she wonders what he stands on?” and I think we both decided, “Well, no, he sits on a throne.” I said, “But what's the throne on?” I think the thinking hasn't gone that far. She's like, “Are we gonna be like that? When we get to heaven we're gonna think I was like a little kid.” Yes, yes, you're gonna realize that all of the thinking that you did about God not faulty, is not wrong. It's just immature. That's what Paul means, “When I was a child, I thought like a child, talked like a child, reasoned like a child.” When we get to heaven, we'll grow up. When we get to heaven, we will see God perfectly and finally, and we will delight in that. We will understand what Paul meant when he said in Romans 11:33, “Oh the depths of the riches, the wisdom and the knowledge of God, how unsearchable his judgments and his paths beyond tracing out. Who has known the mind of the Lord, or who has been his counselor?”

So right now we see, as the KJV says, “through a glass darkly.” Look at verse 12, “For now we see in a mirror dimly, [it's another translation] but then face-to-face, now I know in part then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.” So the mirror in Paul's day would be a highly polished piece of metal, like brass, so very highly polished. That was the best they had. It wasn't until 1835 that a German chemist invented a piece of glass with silver backing that we now know as a mirror and gave a sharper image, most expensive, as far as I know, and perfect mirror that has ever been made by human skill went into the Hubble Space Telescope. And apparently it had a slight flaw, and the flaw in the mirror amounted to effectively 150th the breadth of a human hair, but it created enough distortion in distant starlight that it had to be rectified at the cost of millions, if not billions of dollars, to rectify that, but that's the most perfect mirror there's ever been. Paul says, our understanding of God comes from looking at a mirror, and it's dim. The Greek word here is literally in an enigma, it's a sense of an enigma when you're looking in the mirror of God's word, when you're looking and hearing a sermon, however well it's done, however biblical and accurate, it's like you're looking in an enigma. And the knowledge you're getting from that is limited and imperfect, you're seeing through a mirror dimly. So the decisive completion of our salvation awaits glorification, it awaits that final transformation when we at last see God face-to-face, as Jesus said, “Now, this is eternal life that they may know you, the only true God and Jesus Christ whom you have sent.” So over the next two weeks, God willing, we're gonna look at our heavenly knowledge, and we're gonna see how it will be limitless, it will be perfect and mature. And so, God willing, we'll have two weeks to walk through heaven as a world of love. 

 So what applications can we take from this? So first, I can't ever preach without an opportunity to urge everyone who hears me to make certain that their sins are forgiven through faith in Christ. Come to Christ. Trust in him for the forgiveness of your sins. Do you know that you're a Christian? Are you certain that you're born again? I think COVID-19, the events of 2020 and then the terrible events that happened over the last two weeks have shown us- first of all, the brevity and uncertainty of life, we don't know how long we have, we don't know how long we have in this present mode, we know that we're going to die, but we don't know when. And then we can see in current events and honestly in our own hearts, the depths of wickedness and sin, if you know what to look for, if the Spirit has worked in you, you know that you have evil in your heart that you can't change it, you can't make it better. We need a Savior, and God knowing that, sent his Son into the world to save us from our sins. He lived a sinless life, he lived that perfect life of love that I described at the beginning of this message, and he died on the cross as an atoning sacrifice because we deserved the wrath of God, he did it in our place, but God raised him from the dead. And by faith in him, not by our own good works, not by our own life reformation, but by simple faith in him, our sins are forgiven. Do you know that your sins are forgiven through faith in Christ? And if you do, then all of the things I've said for the last two minutes or three minutes about the gospel; go find some way to tell that to somebody this week.

Every Saturday afternoon, Calvin and I go down and sit in the little plaza down there where the big bull is, I don't know what that bull's made of, metal, I guess, some kind of metal bull. And we just sit there on the bench and we read a book about evangelism. And he has a heart to reach out with the gospel, I do too, and we just wanna be out in public, despite COVID-19, we wanna be out there and just- and then as things kinda go back to normal, we just wanna be able to share the gospel. Well, as we were sitting there yesterday afternoon, a rally came with cameras and all that, right where we were. It seemed best for us not to leave, so we just kept reading the book on evangelism, and ended up getting in a conversation about the gospel, and it was a good conversation, you know, there was some good listening and a chance to talk about faith in Christ. We have an obligation to the people that God providentially brings in our lives to share the gospel. It's the only hope there is for this world. And we are called on to be witnesses.

Secondly, let's see the permanence and excellence of love, that's what this is all about, see how faith, hope and love are greater than all of the spiritual gifts, and that love is greater than faith and hope because it's eternal and the others are temporary. See how all spiritual gifts are a means to the end of working love in us, and therefore we need to do them in love. Look at each phrase, we've been through this now for four or five weeks, but now I get to see, but at least get to see the top half of your face and say take the words of verses 4-7, “Love is patient, love is kind. Doesn't envy, it doesn't boast.” Just take each phrase and say, “Oh, Holy Spirit, show me my sin, work this in me, make me a loving person, transform me by the power of your Word.”

And then finally, set your heart on heaven, we're gonna have God willing, two weeks to look at it, but you don't have to wait for my sermon, just read it yourself, meditate on it. You can go look at Jonathan Edwards, Heaven is a World of Love. It's 40 pages, dear friends, so that's why I thought it'd be good to walk through it over two weeks, but go ahead of me and read and see what we've got waiting for us in heaven.

Close with me in prayer. Father, we thank you for the time that we've had to study. Lord, despite the fact that this is like looking in a mirror dimly, that this is like baby talk, that our knowledge of God is so imperfect and limited, and immature, yet we are thirsty to hear from you, we want, oh Lord, you to work the truth in us. So I pray that you would strengthen each of us by the message of the word now, work love in us deeply by the power of the Spirit, help us to courageously face the circumstances of our day and to be willing to speak the truth in love to people who are dying, who are without hope and without God in the world, we pray in Jesus’ name, Amen.

In Heaven, we will no longer need faith, hope, or spiritual gift packages, but increadibly, love will endure and grow in glory.

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Jesus openly warned His disciples about two shattering events that were about to happen: Judas, one of the Twelve, was going to betray Jesus to His death; Peter, the leader of the Twelve, was going to deny three times that he even knew Jesus. Yet through it all, Jesus’ sovereign power even over Satan himself,

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Pastor Andy Davis preaches a verse-by-verse expository sermon on 1 Corinthians 13:6-7. The main subject of the sermon is the relentless hope and endurance that love brings.

 Well, turn in your Bibles as we continue our study in 1 Corinthians 13. Looking at the next section of this. And I entitled this sermon, “Love's Relentless Positivity.” One of the greatest gifts of the Gospel is the security of God's unconditional love. That God, we believe, as scripture teaches, set his love on his people from eternity past. Before we were born or had done anything, good or bad, God set his love on us. And God, in his heart, just knowing us and loving us in his infinite mind, his omniscience, his timelessness, his eternality. He said in Jeremiah 31:3, "I have loved you with an everlasting love, and therefore in loving kindness I have drawn you." And that gives us security. We're also taught that the greatest display of God's love happened at a moment of redemptive history when we were at our worst. As Romans 5:8 says, "God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners Christ died for us." So at that very time when we were enemies of God, when we were repulsive to his holy eyes, when we were rebels and were darkened in our minds and understandings and lived lives according to that darkness, Christ died for us, the greatest display of love there's ever been, when we're at our worst.

And so now also God continues to love us in Christ, not because of what we are, but because of his unconditional love for us. Even the best of us on our best days on earth are immeasurably short of the standard of holiness and righteousness required for heaven. Even when we've been sanctified daily for decades, walking with the Lord faithfully, there is still immeasurable corruption in our hearts and therefore in our lives, but God loves us in Christ, and he loves us for what we will be, not so much what we are. Some day we Christians are gonna be perfectly conformed to the standard of love we read about in 1 Corinthians 13. We're gonna be perfectly conformed to Christ. We're gonna be glorious. We're gonna shine like the sun in the kingdom of our Heavenly Father. And God sees that future right now, because he is eternal and he knows what we will be. Now, this kind of unconditional love in Christ gives us amazing security. It puts a solid rock under our feet every day. As the Psalmist said in Psalm 40:2-3, "He lifted me out of the slimy pit, out of the mud and mire; he set my feet on a rock and gave me a firm place to stand. He put a new song in my mouth and a hymn of praise to our God." What a picture of salvation and security.

Now, 1 Corinthians 13 is not about God's unconditional love for us in Christ. It's about our love for one another horizontally. It is human love for other human beings, that's what the chapter is about. Not only that, but it's human love for other flawed and imperfect, indeed even sinful, human beings. That's what it's about. That's why we're told, love is long-suffering. You don't have to be long-suffering with perfect people. Love is not easily angered. Love keeps no record of wrongs. You won't need that in heaven. Nobody is gonna make you angry in heaven, nobody's gonna do you wrong in heaven; there's no record of wrongs there. So this love chapter is designed for the here and now, for us as flawed, sinful human beings to love other flawed, sinful human beings. But our love for each other is patterned after God's unconditional love for us in Christ. We are to love each other as Christ has loved us. John 13:34-35, Jesus said, "A new command I give you: love one another as I have loved you so you must love one another, by this will all men know that you are my disciples, if you love one another."

So as such, we're called in the verses that we're going to look at today, to a rugged kind of love. Verse 7, "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." That's one translation. This is an unsinkable love; this is love like a buoyant cork that just you can't keep it down. It just keeps popping up. It's just relentless. It sticks with flawed, imperfect people who are still sinning every day, it's a love that's relentlessly positive in that discouraging situation, hopeful about what the grace of God can do in that person's life. It never gives up. And that love is instrumental in the church work we do, in sanctifying one another, as the Holy Spirit uses us in each other's lives, that we would have that kind of resilient buoyant love for each other is instrumental in our sanctification.

Now, we begin this morning in verse 6 with the statement, “Love does not rejoice in evil.” This is the end of a long list of negatives that we've been looking at in 1 Corinthians 13; this is the eighth of the eight negatives. It began with the words, love does not envy. So love has no jealous or angry feelings over the blessings that God gives to other people. Conversely, love delights in those blessings and actually seeks to multiply those blessings as much as we possibly can- we want other people to be blessed by God. Love does not envy. We've also seen that love is not boastful, concerning the blessings God gives us, we don't lord it over other people and mock them that they don't have them, thus, I guess, trying to create that kind of envy in the other person, not at all. We see all of the blessings that God gives us as really meant for other people, we're conduits of blessing, that's what love should be. Thirdly, we've seen love is not proud. Pride is the root of all manner of human wickedness and sin. Love, however, is fundamentally humble, it's deeply aware of our status before God, both as creatures and as sinners and so we're humbled by that and, therefore, we consider others better than ourselves, love considers their needs more important than our own, that's what love does. Love, fourthly, is not rude, it doesn't break the rules of social graciousness, it doesn't strip other people of honor, it doesn't behave inappropriately, it doesn't talk too loudly, doesn't shove itself forward, doesn't take the biggest piece, it doesn't interrupt, it doesn't use foul language, it doesn't dress inappropriately for the occasion. It's not ill mannered; it holds the door for people walking behind it. It is a polished, graceful pattern of behavior appropriate to every situation. Love is not rude. Love is not selfish. It's not relentlessly committed to self-interest, as we all are, naturally, committed to self-interest, disconnected from God or anyone else, or that fleshly drive to feed self. Love is against that. Love expands. It's expansive to include others, so where our hearts are not constricted, pulled in, but instead love causes to expand and to not be selfish, to take in others. Sixthly, last week we saw, love is not easily angered. Doesn't have a short fuse, it's not hair triggered. It has a long, slow fuse, doesn't get angry based on self-interest; doesn't have revenge at its heart. And then love keeps no record of wrongs, a seventh of the negatives. Constantly aware of the sins that others have committed against us, keeping a record, being unforgiving, being bitter, being sour toward people. Love does not do that, but instead love has a gracious willingness to forgive, a yearning to see other people have the same release and covering that we have had. So that's the seven negatives we've looked at; now we look at the eighth, love does not rejoice in evil. Now, this has to do with the basic wiring of the human heart. When the Holy Spirit works saving grace in our hearts, he lines our hearts up with God's heart, that's what conformity to Christ is about.

It's impossible to put into words how much God loves righteousness and hates wickedness. God made a beautiful universe. He declared everything good. Think about how pristine and pure it was on that first seventh day when he looked at everything he'd made and it was beautiful. But sin, wickedness, evil, entered into the universe and has destroyed so much of that beauty. Not all of it, but so much of it. And that destruction is still continuing day after day. So God has a perfect hatred for wickedness and is adamantly opposed to it. Jesus Christ, as the Son of God, the radiance of God's glory and the exact representation of his being, perfectly reflects that, as well. So God the Father says to Christ the Son, “You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness, therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.” So, when we're converted, our hearts are aligned to Christ, aligned to this disposition to love righteousness and hate wickedness. We are then attracted to righteousness, we see righteousness, holiness, as beautiful and attractive, we yearn for it, and we hate wickedness, we see it more clearly than ever before and we are repulsed from it. Though, sadly, still not perfectly in either case.

Now, if we love others, therefore we will hate all wickedness in reference to them. What then does it mean to rejoice in wickedness, as love does not rejoice in wickedness? The word rejoice is a strong one, as though there's some kind of pleasure, some kind of delight in it, a strong attraction to wickedness, just kind of yearning for it or delighting in evil. As Isaiah 5:20 says, "Woe to those who call evil good and good evil. To those who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter." That's perverse. In our natural unregenerate state, that's what our hearts are like. We are attracted to dark things; we find a secret delight in them. In this context, I think it has to do with the sins and wickedness that we see or hear about in other people. The daily news services, even social media that streams information to our smartphones brings an unending stream, it seems, of wickedness and evil about other people: reports of their crime, of their lusts, their sexual immorality, their greed, their filthy language, their rebellion against authority. It's a steady stream of it.

Now lost people, it seems, love to hear about wickedness in others, they delight in the news of a leader's closet sins being exposed, or those of a movie star and athlete gets prime billing. It's like our souls, unregenerate souls, are like carrion birds, like these nasty turkey vultures, you ever see them? Like six or seven of them by the side of the road; has there ever been an uglier bird than a turkey vulture? And it's got an ugly job to do. I guess we just should thank God for how he's arranged the system here, but you know when you see a bunch of these birds, there's a carcass down below; these birds just have a taste for what's nasty. Repulsive as it is, there's even still some of that in our hearts. We love to hear the sins of others, even the juicy details. Sometimes it shows up in people wanting others to fall. We love to see their comeuppance. Apart from the regenerating work of God, we love to see the successful man or woman be exposed in terms of their darker side, now they don't talk so proudly, they don't walk so proudly, they've been stripped down, they've been lowered, sometimes people even gain an advantage from the fall of others because of their sins, maybe the embezzlement at the office or the office affair gets exposed and now the way is open for you to get that corner office, and so there's some delight in it. Politics these days sadly seem to focus on this filth. It seems like both Democrats and Republicans, and I'll extend even to Independents, I don't wanna leave anyone out, seems to just unleash secret investigations to find out dirt on people. They look at people in their past, what they did in college, are there any incriminating photos or anything in their social media stream or something that we can use as a weapon, searching out for the dirt so they can destroy a person.

The most common form of rejoicing and wickedness is gossip. Proverbs 26:22 says, “The words of a gossip are like choice morsels, they go down to a man's in-most parts.” Churches are sadly riddled with gossips, who find artful ways of telling the secrets of others, often cloaked in prayer requests. Elders have to shepherd and we have to go after sin and deal with it, etcetera, but we have to be very careful about what we share and how we think about it. Why do people love wickedness? Why do they love other people's sins? Well, I think there's a basic pride that we can feel better about ourselves in our sin. If we see someone fall it makes us feel better, it also gives us an excuse for the native judgmentalism we have in our hearts, that moral superiority. Non-Christians love stories of the sins of Christians because it excuses them from considering the perfect claims of Christ who never sinned.

Jesus was able to stand in front of his accusers and say, “Can any of you find me guilty of sin?” It's incredible thing that Jesus said; he was pure. Christianity is a pure religion based on a pure perfect human being, but when non-Christians see the sins of Christians and they get exposed, especially leaders, pastors, others, they feel like, "They're all hypocrites, so I don't need to look at my own sin, I don't need to look at Christianity." Well, what's so wrong about all this, what's wrong about rejoicing in wickedness? Well, it forgets the wickedness that we have before the sight of God, and how much damage also the wickedness does to those people in the world.

God has overwhelming grief when he sees the sin in this world. Jesus wept over Jerusalem, and because of their sins and their wickedness and the consequences that would come. Godly people grieve whenever God's laws are violated. Whenever they're broken. Psalm 1:19, "Tears streamed from my eyes because your laws are broken." You think about how 2 Peter 2 tells us that Lot in Sodom was a righteous man and said, that righteous man living among them day after day was tormented in his righteous soul by the lawless deeds he saw and heard. Human rejoicing in wickedness underestimates, therefore, what that sin is doing to the other person. If we really love someone, we want that person to be free from all sin. We see sin as spiritual poison and we, our hearts, expand to that person and want them to be set free from what made them do that evil thing. In church discipline cases there is sin exposed in a person. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 5 that the response should be grief. 1 Corinthians 5:2 says, "You are proud; shouldn't you rather have been filled with grief, and put out of your fellowship the men who did this?" So there's this grieving over sin that should be. There should be no smugness at a time like that, no secret rejoicing in that person's downfall, only a deep sorrow and a desire that that person should repent and be restored and saved.

Well, conversely then, what does it mean that love rejoices with the truth? That's the flip side of not rejoicing in wickedness, the essence of a heart of love toward another person is to deeply yearn for their blessedness. We wanna see them blessed. The ultimate blessing is the righteousness that comes through the Gospel of Jesus Christ. We wanna see that happen in the other people's lives. We delight in seeing other people prosper spiritually. Notice, interestingly, Paul does not use the mirror image word, “Love does not delight in wickedness, but rejoices in…” we would think righteousness. But he doesn't say that. He said, “Love rejoices with the truth.” And so, for me, as a Bible reader, interpreter, I think, "What does that mean? What is the truth?" And it doesn't take long for us to realize that Jesus Christ is the truth. John 14:6, Jesus said, "I am the way and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me." Isn't that incredible? That Jesus doesn't say, merely, “I teach the truth,” or “I speak the truth,” or “I love the truth.” “I am the truth.” “I am the truth.” And so, it rejoices with Christ in that person's life. We could also extend it to the word of God, as it says in John 17:17, "Sanctify them by the truth, your word is truth." So we don't delight in wickedness or evil, we rejoice with the truth that is Jesus, and the truth that is in God's word, and specifically the truth at work in someone's life. We rejoice to see God's word unleashed in a sinner's life. Like Paul did with the Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians 2:13, he said, "We also thank God continually, because when you receive the word of God, which you heard from us, you were accepted it not as the word of men, but as it actually is, the word of God which is at work in you who believe." Isn't that beautiful? God's word at work in other people's lives, that's what we delight in. To see God's word have its way with a sinner, it's a beautiful thing. So we delight in that, we enjoy other people's salvation. We delight in that good news.

Think about the cycle of parables in Luke 15, the lost sheep, the lost coin, and then the lost son, we usually call the prodigal son. All three end in a big celebration. For example, the lost sheep, it says, “When the man finds it, he then joyfully puts it on his shoulders and goes home. And then he calls his friends and his neighbors together, and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I've found my lost sheep.’" Jesus said in Luke 15:7, "I tell you that in the same way there'll be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over 99 righteous persons who do not need to repent." And then he does the same thing with the lost coin, the woman that loses the coin, “Or suppose a woman has 10 silver coins and loses one, does she not light a lamp, sweep the house, search carefully until she finds it. And when she finds it, she calls her friends and neighbors together and says, ‘Rejoice with me; I have found my lost coin.’ In the same way [Jesus says] I tell you there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents." As I read that, I think it's God the one doing the rejoicing. He is the one that was searching. He is the one that was seeking the lost. And when he finds one sinner and brings that person to repentance and faith, he celebrates. So he's saying to the angels, "Watch me while I celebrate," and they join him, too. And then at the end of the parable of the prodigal son, remember what happens? The father says, "Bring the fattened calf and kill it. Let's have a feast and celebrate, for this son of mine was dead and is alive again. He was lost and is found." So they began to celebrate.

So all three parables teach the same thing, which is celebration over lost sinners who repent. That's what love does, it rejoices with the truth unleashed in a sinner's life to the end of their salvation. That's what it does. So, truly, also in a Christian relationship, if someone loves you, they'll want to see you, not only have your sins forgiven, be born again, but see you make progress in the Christian life. We delight in the truth unleashed in a person's life in terms of sanctification, progressive holiness. We celebrate little and big victories in each other's lives. I think that's part of what it means to watch over one another in brotherly love. We're not just making sure they don't do bad things, but rejoicing when the truth is at work in someone's life, celebrating.

My discipler at MIT, Tim Schumann, he was with Campus Crusade for Christ, he did this very well. He's really good at it. You picture someone... Tim was this for me, who, the Boston Marathon was big where I grew up, and just the streets are lined with people cheering on runners. And if you're a runner in the Boston marathon, you wanna get your friends and family and they'll tell you where they're gonna stand, and they stand there with signs and they cheer you on. And that's what Tim did for me. That's what we can do for each other. Person's running a race with endurance; they're running a marathon race of righteousness and holiness. Cheer them on. Let's see the way that God's at work in each other's lives and delight in it.

Alright, having said that, then Paul turns to the statements of the four aspects that we talked about at the beginning. And I'm gonna read the New American Standard, verse 7, "Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things." Now, I have grouped these together under the heading of the sermon, “Love's Relentless Positivity.” Love is buoyantly optimistic despite the long journey of the daily effects of sin in that other person's life. The fact of indwelling sin and sin's stubborn habits, they're so incredibly difficult to break. All of you who have been walking with the Lord a long time, you can say, "Amen, I know exactly what you're talking about." Sin is hard to break. It's stubborn, relentless.

Now, you wouldn't need this if you were in heaven with the person, if that person was shining like the sun in the kingdom of their father, and so were you, you don't need this. This is for here and now. This is for until we get there. You wouldn't have to believe all things, hope all things, endure all things with a glorified saint in heaven. But we need it now, and the reason for that is indwelling sin. As Paul said in Romans 7, "The very thing I hate, I do. The thing I want to do, I do not do." That's why we need these four phrases here, because of indwelling sin. That's what makes all human relationships on earth difficult. Sin in Christian relationships, it's residual habits of sin, the stubbornness of those habits that makes marriage difficult. It makes parenting difficult. It makes relating to your parents difficult. It makes sibling relationships difficult. Friends, it's what makes local church such a challenge, because we're all sinners. We all have that indwelling sin, and we bother each other and torment each other with our indwelling sin, and so we need help.

Notice how two of the words are overtly negative, "Love bears all things and endures all things." But what do you have to bear? What do you have to endure but sin in somebody's life and the effects of those sins. And even the two positive words, "Love believes all things, and hopes all things,” seems to have to do with sin as well, believing the best about someone, hoping that they'll change eventually, things like that. Paul's point here is that love is buoyant. And he culminates in the statement "Love never fails."

So let's walk through them briefly. First, "Love bears all things." Now, first, we have to say a word about all things, and there are different translations. You've seen different translations even this morning. Clearly, Paul does not mean that love just glosses over sin or accepts it. Churches still have to discipline sin. Adultery still can result in divorce. There are consequences. Crime still has consequences. Paul made it plain that love rejects all manner of bad behaviors that I walked through earlier in the sermon. Envy, boasting, arrogance, rudeness, selfishness, anger, resentment, wickedness, these are not okay. So we're not just gonna put up with those things. We have to fight all of them.

And also, "Love believes all things" certainly has nothing to do with false doctrine or non-Christian religions, not like "Mormonism is fine. Love believes all things." It's not like that at all. So what does it mean? I think it just... “All things” means always or in all circumstances. Also, the sins that we do deal with, I think we know what they are. There are some sins that trigger church discipline, and then there are others that we just have to put up with day after day that don't. They're just issues that we struggle with in daily life. I think that's what it means.

So love bears all things. Now, to bear with something means to put up with it or to carry it. If you're gonna bear a burden, you're carrying it, like carrying a weight. The idea is that someone's sin is making your life difficult. Someone's behavior is making your life hard, and you have to bear with it. I think about something that's irksome or annoying, like imagine when the alternator belt in someone's car needs tightening, and it screeches every time the car starts, I think about that. Or fingernails on a blackboard, pretty soon people won't know what that means. But some older people know what chalk and blackboards are, and they know what fingernails on a blackboard sounds like. Fingernails on a white board, not the same, but fingernails on a blackboard is horrible. So you get the feeling of things that jangle and irritate and annoy in a relationship.

Now, there are amoral annoyances, and perhaps this is talking about that. We just put up with each other, honestly. Our bodies take up space, and we do things with our bodies. And they're not moral issues, but you just have to get used to it. In pre-marital counseling, we say you realize that you're gonna have to get used to each other. It's gonna take a while. "No, no, we love each other." Alright, let's talk after a year, give free post marital counseling, and let's talk about "How's it going?" So they're just habit patterns, the way that people live their lives, what they do with their laundry, and what they do when they laugh, their laugh. You didn't know they snored? They do, there's just different things. Those are any more... And you could say, “Well, is that included?” Yes, it's included. Include everything under this. Whatever you have to bear, bear it, but I think it's, especially when it comes to sins, moral patterns that really are sinful, interrupting, something we talk a lot about in our family, and we all do it and we all hate it.

Anyone is- really gets upset about interruption is a hypocrite, 'cause we all do it, but it's like, "Oh God, help me not to interrupt, it's so rude." But you gotta bear with it, sinful anger, the other person's an angry person and they're working on it, they're trying but they're still... It just happens, you gotta bear with it, or procrastination, you just put off things, bad habits, they're messy, or over-eating or watching too many sports or overspending, these are moral issues. Now, forgiveness is essentially what we're talking about here, you're carrying another person's load, just like Jesus did for us, Isaiah 53:4, “Surely he has born our grief and carried our sorrows.” So we're in a Christian love relationship, we carry each other's loads, we bear all things at the form of that first thing we talked about, that love is long suffering, we put up with each other and we're willing to cover their sins, like Proverbs 10:12 says, “Hatred stirs up dissension, but love covers over all wrongs.” So love bears with all manner of difficulties, annoyances, irritations, sins of that level that we've discussed, and it doesn't throw in the towel easily or quickly.

Secondly, love believes all things. One of the most interesting studies I've done, this is one of the only, I think maybe the only use of the word believe that isn't tied to Christ or the Gospel of God. Here we're believing other people, it makes it an interesting verse, what am I supposed to believe about a person, especially knowing that they're sinners, this is what we call as Baptists in local church life, the judgment of charity, we're going to give each other the benefit of the doubt in our Christian confession. Local churches work on the basic assumption that people are in a positive way, what they appear to be, that if they claim to be a Christian, unless there's contravening evidence, we're gonna believe they're Christians. We're gonna believe that about them. We're not gonna assume there's some dark secret lurking and at some point it's gonna come out, happens to everybody, everybody's got a skeleton in the closet. Friends, do you not realize how that would destroy local church fellowship? Imagine that, it's like, “I know it hasn't happened with you yet, but sooner or later the truth's coming out with you, so I really can't be nice to you, I need to treat you in advance how I'm gonna treat you then,” I mean that's- that, you can't do local church that way. So fundamentally, that's what we mean by the judgment of charity. If someone seems to be a Christian we will accept their Christian confession. We are well aware of the universality of sin, we're well aware that no one that we deal with physically here on Earth is perfect, yet everyone's struggling with sin, we get all that, but we just basically put a white robe on them, like we will in heaven. In heaven I believe we'll have a perfect understanding of everyone sinfulness, and we will know how completely covered in grace they are and how transformed so that they are radically a different person, and so we're going to wear white robes in heaven and it's gonna be radiant and glorious, and we're not going to shame each other or be shamed in heaven. In the meantime, that's kind of how we treat each other, unless there's the need to deal with sin like in church discipline. So, and, even in those situations, in any situation, basically, we're accepting that people are innocent until proven guilty, that's what love believes all things in the Christian life is. If there's any doubt about a person's guilt or innocence level, see that person as innocent until there's evidence, clear evidence.

And love is clearly rooting for the person to be vindicated, if there is evidence of some sinfulness, we're still seeking to see the grace at work in that person's life and believe that they can be won over. In this way we are not at all like Job's friends, my goodness, with friends like that- we know that Job's friends did best when they sat with him quietly and said nothing; that was good. But once they started in on Job, it was incredible, like the worst- this is the low point for me, Eliphaz in Job 22, listen to this, "Is not your wickedness endless, are not your sins great? You demanded security from your brothers, for no reason, you strip men of their clothing, leaving them naked, you gave no water to the weary and you withheld food from the hungry, though you were a powerful man owning land, an honored man living on it, and you sent widows away empty-handed and broke the strength of the fatherless, that's why snares are all around you. That's why sudden peril terrifies you." None of that's true. None of it. He just assumed it was true. We know from scripture that Job was a righteous man, and in Job 31, he said he didn't do any of these things, he actually cared for widows and orphans, and he was a righteous man, but that's what it doesn't look like to believe all things.

Love believes the best about someone, it doesn't immediately listen to hearsay and rumors and gossip. Ultimately the believing the best about the Lord's grace in someone else's life. “I know that he or she is a sinner, I know that, but I also know they're a Christian,” and I know this: that, “Where sin abounds, grace is going to abound all the more.” Romans 5:20, sin is great, grace is greater. I believe that about each other, we believe that about each other, we believe that even the most stubborn sin patterns can be put to death, we expect and trust that God can work in that person's life, so he'll be much more like Christ 10 years now than they are today. I believe that, in marriage, in parenting in pastoring, in discipling sinners, we believe that all things are possible in terms of sanctification. For anyone that believes Christ, they can grow in grace.

So this confidence, then, allows us to address sin in the family, in the church, redemptively. We go confidently to the sinner and we're believing that, even though this immediate process is painful, it will have a good result. Galatians 6:1, it says, “Brothers, if someone is caught in a sin, you who are spiritual should restore him gently.” So there is that sense of, “We're gonna go and restore this person, we're gonna win them back,” or again, Luke 17:3-4, this is a challenging passage: “If your brother sins, rebuke him. If he repents, forgive him. If he sins against you,” listen to this, “seven times in a single day,” can I just stop right there? That's a bad day. The two of you are having a very bad day. Anyway, “if he sins against you seven times in a day, and seven times comes back and says, ‘I repent,’ forgive him.” Wow, well, that's what it looks like to believe all things like, “I'm gonna keep forgiving this person, I'm gonna keep with this person.” We don't just give up on people, we don't- the church doesn't shoot her wounded. Think about the case between Paul and Barnabas over John Mark. Remember that, how Mark abandoned them on the first missionary journey, and Paul's like, “you're done,” he's not gonna take him on the second missionary journey, no way. Well, Barnabas starts to advocate for him, Paul won't have it, and the two of them had a sharp dispute, this is in Acts 15. Barnabas means son of encouragement. He was just... That was his ministry. Putting an arm around somebody, he did it to Saul when he first introduced him to the Jerusalem church, that's who he was. Paul's not hearing anything of it, Paul didn't believe all things about John Mark, but Barnabas believed in him, and in the end was vindicated. And Paul vindicated him in 2 Timothy 4-11, he says, “Get Mark and bring him with you because he's helpful to me in my ministry.” So we believe all things about...

Thirdly, love hopes all things. What that means is that love is fundamentally optimistic, as I've been saying about what God's grace can do, and we believe in a bright future for this person, “I believe in you. I believe in what God can do, I'm hopeful for you.” Do you not see how redemptive that is to be able to say that to somebody? For parents to say that to teens that are struggling, “I got to believe in what God's doing in your life. I believe you're gonna be fruitful, you're gonna walk with the Lord,” you speak these kinds of hopeful words. Imagine the alternative. “You're a loser. Sin's gonna win in your life, there's nothing you can do,” that is Satan talking! He strips us of hope, let's not do Satan's work for him, he doesn't need any help from us, Let's speak hope into people's lives and say, “I believe in what God's doing,” not because we believe that person is so awesome and so great when none of us is awesome and great, but because God's grace is greater. So we hope for the best. We see the possibility of a glorious outcome for the person that we love, and we are hopeful. I just always picture the father of the prodigal son, I always have him at the end of the driveway, they didn't have driveways back then, but anyway, that's how I picture him, what can I do about it? But there he is at the end of the driveway. Day after day after day after day after day, waiting for the son to come home. It says in Romans 10:21, concerning Israel, “All day long, I've held up my hands to a disobedient obstinate people.” That's what God does. 

 So love hopes all things, and then finally, love endures all things. So I think the Greek word here refers to a soldier that's put at his post and he doesn't leave it. You're just there, you're posted in this person's life, and you're not gonna leave the post. You never give up. I think about the French soldiers at Verdun, where they said, “They shall not pass.” It became a watch word for a nation in World War I. “They shall not pass, I'm not leaving this position.” Or Joshua Lawrence Chamberlain at the Battle of Gettysburg, he took the extreme left of the Union line and just would not give up that position 'cause he knew that if he did that their line would be rolled up like a carpet and it happened at Chancellorsville, and so he just stood firm, and so you picture those military issues, you're gonna say, “I'm gonna stand here and I'm not moving in this person's life, I'm not gonna give up. I'm going to endure whatever it takes to see God's grace win in this person's life.” Now, let me tell you something, in local church there's so many tragic stories that just are unfolding in front of us all the time, we know for some people, this is maybe the hardest thing that God calls them to do. Think about parents who have grown kids that are not walking with the Lord, maybe they're addicted on drugs, maybe they're just living a very secular, successful life and they have no room for Jesus, and these parents weep over their wandering kids day after day. Or think about marriages that are just severely wounded by sin and each of them are trying to make it work, but it's so hard, and you know you need to forgive, and you know that the road is hard and you believe it's worth doing for the sake of the kids, for the community to fight for the marriage, but it's just hard. Think about pastors that are doing revitalization work in some dying churches in which there's a remnant of faithful Christians, but so much unbelief, so many unregenerate church members who have so much pain and suffering and they're pounding on the pastor, making life very difficult for him, and he is called, he feels he's called by God to stay at that post and believe in the future of that church, it's hard work, love endures all things. Sometimes that's all that people have in those situations, love never fails. It just doesn't give up. It's like God said, of sinning Israel in the most potent, I think one of the most painful books in the Bible is Hosea, remember the one where the prophet mimicking God had to marry a prostitute. It was very sad, and it just talked about the wandering of God's people into sin. But he says very powerfully, God says in Hosea 11:8, “How can I give you up, oh Ephraim? How can I hand you over, oh Israel?” And he says, “My heart is changed within me. All my compassion is aroused.” “I can't give you up,” God says.

Alright, well, how do we live this out? Like every verse in 1 Corinthians 13, it's challenging, isn't it? It's challenging. Remember what I said a few weeks ago about how there is kind of like bad news, discouraging news to some degree, maybe the hard part, the painful part, is you read this, you're like, “I'm not like this. I know I wanna be, but I'm not like this.” So that's the bad news. But then the good news is, first and foremost, there is, if you're a Christian, evidence of some grace in your life, isn't there, there's some aspects you can see that God is working some of this in you. And, furthermore, just the fact that you feel pain and convicted means you're alive spiritually, the Holy Spirit's at work in your life. So that's good. And then the second aspect of the good part is: think of what your life will look like over the next 10 years if you put this into practice, how much better everything, not just this one sermon, but all of 1 Corinthians 13, you put this in practice like you've never done before, your life will get so much better, you'll be so much more fruitful, think about that. And then thirdly, think about heaven, we're going there eventually in 1 Corinthians 13, to a world where things will be perfect, this is the time of the imperfect, we're going to the world of the perfect, and we're looking forward to that. So one discouraging thing, how much this hurts and you're not doing it, we're not loving, but three encouraging things. But above all, the first and foremost thing you need to do is ask yourself, "Am I a Christian?" You can't live out this kind of supernatural life as an unbeliever. And so I ask you, I appeal to you to look at your conscience, look at your heart and ask; are you born again? Have you trusted in Jesus as your Lord and Savior? Have you come to the cross? Have you realized that you're unloving, that you've lived a life of un-love, as we all have, that you violated God's laws, that you've not loved him with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, you've not loved your neighbor as yourself. You are a sinner, and do you realize that God, knowing you could not save yourself sent his Son, the perfect savior of the world, Jesus Christ, who perfectly did love God with all of his heart, and perfectly did love his neighbor as himself, won for us, a perfect righteousness that he just offers you as a gift, and he offers to take all of your filthy rags of sin and take it on himself and die under the judgment of God, the wrath of God, which we deserve. We deserve to go to hell. But if you will just repent of all of your darkness, all of your unloving attitudes and actions, and come to faith in Christ, God will begin, through the power of the Holy Spirit to work in you. So come to Christ. If you are a Christian, you need to come to the cross again and again to do this, realize that you're a sinner saved by grace, let it humble you, and then say, "Lord, I pray that you would just take this aspect and work this in me." If you have a difficult person in your life, somebody you have been thinking about the whole sermon, and you almost wanna say, "Pastor, if you knew this person, you would have preached differently." It's like... I don't think so. I think it's exactly because of that person that we need these words, but can I just urge you, take that person to the Lord in prayer. Maybe it's a child, an offspring, maybe young, maybe not, as I said, maybe somebody grown and you're seeking to point that person day after day to Christ, and it's hard, and day after day, they're breaking your heart. Be mindful of the limitless strength that comes day after day from the love of God, and then just pray, say, “Lord, this person is pushing me hard every day, I want to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, endure all things. Would you please work that in me? Enable me to live out these four phrases. I find myself, Lord, getting impatient and carnal, and frustrated and irritable and acting badly in this relationship, would you forgive me and would you work this in me?” This kind of prayer is so effective when we're struggling in loveless-ness.

Well, I'm gonna close this time now in prayer and pray these things for all of us. Father, we thank you for the purity and the perfection of your word. I am undone by it week after week, convicted by it, but I thank you, oh Lord, that that shows that I'm alive and that the Spirit is at work in my life, and it also shows me ways I can grow and that I should be optimistic and hopeful about what you can do over the next 10 years, if you let me live in these areas. And Lord, I pray for First Baptist Church, I pray for the members of our church, I pray for husbands with their wives and wives with their husbands. I pray for parents with their growing children, even if they're babies or toddlers or maybe they're in elementary school, they're older, maybe they're teens, maybe they're fully grown, Lord, I pray that you'd give them a gracious heart of love toward their kids. And Lord, I pray that we as a church would extend that to one another, we have different convictions, different IDs, controversial issues happen in our nation and in current events and we don't agree on how to think about it, what to do. God, I pray make us a loving church, put that love on display here at First Baptist Church in Durham. Lord, as we have one more week before we gather some of us anyway, next week, Lord, help us to, as Andy said, pray for each other, be mindful of each other, encourage each other. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.