The Power of Love - 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

Amen, good morning, Northland. excited to be back with you all today. Thanks again for giving me the time away. Tonight, the member meeting. I'll share a little bit more about my experiences in Ecuador, but I'm excited to be back with you when I left. I thought, wow, 4 weeks away. I'll go 4 weeks without preaching. I don't know they've ever gone in my adult life, 4 weeks without preaching. And then I got invited to preach 2 times in Ecuador. So, I actually got to preach 2 of the 4 Sundays I was there, but I'm excited to preach, uh, 2 of the 4 Sunday, so I can just roll today, and excited to worship without using Google Translate to look up words that I was singing. So excited to be with you in 1st Corinthians today, as Tyler noted, he read our passage today. 1 Corinthians 13. And he rightly noted, this is probably the most popular, well-known chapter in all of this book that we're working our way through. It's one of the more popular passages in the New Testament. In fact, it's possible that you could have never gone to a Sunday morning worship service at a church and still be familiar with this passage of scripture because it's a passive scripture that often gets read at weddings. And so it could be that you've never attended a church service, but you've gone to a wedding. And so when you hear this passing minute, you go, I've heard that before. I have done a lot of weddings in my 30 plus years of ministry, I don't know how many weddings, it's got to be over 100, I'm sure. And at every one of those weddings, I read at part of that ceremony, I read this passage of scripture. It's a common scripture here at weddings. It's a passive scripture. I preached if I'm invited to do a marriage conference or something like that on a weekend. And they asked me to preach on the subject of marriage. It's probably a passage I've gone to in those times. If I've done marriage counseling with people. It's a passive scripture that I've turned to during those times. But here's the thing about 1st Corinthians chapter 13, while you hear it read at weddings, and you might hear it used by a pastor in a pastoral counseling situation in a marriage, it wasn't initially addressed to married couples. It was addressed to the entire church. And so if you've heard this passage at a wedding and say, that's actually a beautiful pass subscription, my daughter's getting married in about 5 or 6 weeks, I'm not sure how far away it is, the end of March. I'll probably read this passive scripture at her wedding. It's a beautiful, very fitting passive scripture for a wedding, but it's so much more than that. This was not a passive scripture, written just for the context of marriage. This was a passage of scripture written to the entire body of Christ. And so what we're going to look at today is, what does the Bible say about love? What is the true biblical definition and expression of love? And yes, it will apply to your marriages. If you're married today, I hope this will help your marriage, but it's bigger than that. This is going to help us with every relationship we have within the body of Christ. So I want you to think today about the challenges you face, not just in your marriage, but maybe in the rest of your family, your challenges with your brothers or your sisters, the challenges you have with your parents, or parents, the challenge you have with your kids, or the challenges you have in your workplace, or the challenges you have in your school, or in your other interpersonal relationships, in your social circles, and specifically, what are the challenges you might have with your brothers and sisters in the body of Christ. This is a passive scripture about the love we're called to show one another as followers of Jesus. If you were here last week, you heard Tyler preach 1st Corinthians chapter 12. If you missed that, you could always go to our website or our Facebook page and you can find those messages or your favorite podcast app, you can search Northland Church Sermons and find it even in your podcast app. You go back and hear these sermons. You heard a great message from chapter 12 on what it looks like to exercise our spiritual gifts within the body of Christ. So where we're going today is some, as they were exercising their spiritual gifts within the body of Christ. They were doing them from a place of pride, a place of selfishness. And their pride in their gifts from God, and how they used those gifts they were given from God, had caused division in the church. What God gave the church to strengthen the church to serve one another had become a divisive thing within the body of Christ because they had lost the motivation of love. And so this calls us back. What does it look like to really love one another, and to display that love and to be motivated by that love in the way we serve and love one another. So we jump in. Seven characteristics today, okay? Seven characteristics, 13 verses, seven characteristics of true biblical love. Let's jump into the 1st one right away is that love should be the primary motive behind every act of ministry and service. Love should be the primary motive behind every act of ministry and service. Lotus of verse one, if I speak in the tongue of men and of angels, but have not love, I'm a noisy gong or a clinging symbol. Here's where he's going to go. He's going to list in verses one through 3 some spiritual gifts. And he's going to say, if you exercise those from any other motive, you've gotten it wrong, our ministry efforts, our desire to serve other people, all of that is empty, pointless, powerless, meaningless, useless, if love is not the motive. He starts here with tongues. If I have the gift of tongues, and I could speak every language, and I could speak a language of angels, but if I don't have love, I'm just a noisy gong or a clinging symbol. As beautiful as that gift might be, if I'm not exercising it in love, it's just a noisy symbol. You can imagine if we had a worship service where only Mason showed up and no one else on the stage and he just banged on a symbol through every song. That would be terrible. Believe me, I raised him. It is terrible. That's what we are. We're a noisy clinging symbol. If we're not exercising our gifts from a motive of love. Without love. These gifts are pointless and powerless. You know what's possible to do the right thing for the wrong reason. It's possibly the right. And I'm going to tell you, we ought to we ought to desire, Lord, I'd rather do things poorly from the right motive than flawlessly with the wrong motive. And that's what he's saying here. Motive matters. You can speak every language, but you're a bunch of noise if you're not speaking that from a spirit of love. Verse two. I can have prophetic powers. And understand all mysteries and all knowledge and have all faith so as to move mountains. But if I have not love, I'm nothing, even a gift of faith, a gift of prophecy, a gift of knowledge, not exercised in love is useless. In fact, not only useless, but even destructive, if my motive isn't love. Verse three, if I give away all I have. And I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gained nothing. Even if you sacrificed every worldly possession you have, I'll give it all away. In fact, I'll even die the death of a martyr. I'll allow my body to be burned as a sacrifice of service. He said, if that's not done from love. It's pointless, it's meaningless. It's all worthless without love. Let me ask you today. What is the motive? behind your service. What is the motive behind your ministry? You know, we can serve for the wrong reasons. You can do the right thing for the wrong reason. What are those false motives. Sometimes we're motivated by pride. We just like the fact that we have a particular ability or a gift, and when we exercise that gift, people tell us that, wow, really, you're really good at that, or when you do that, it's really helpful, or your ministry in my life was really impactful. And we kind of well up with a sense of pride. And we want to serve more because we like the feedback we get. We like it when people say that what we're doing is making a difference. what we're doing that we're really making an impact. And so we really begin to serve not out of love, but out of the pride of the feedback we get from others. Sometimes we serve out of guilt. You, how many times have you just been guilted into doing something. You didn't want to do it. You just someone nasty and you felt bad because they needed it done and so you did it. And, uh, you really it was more guilt that motivated you. Sometimes we do things to gain the respect or admiration of others. Mentors or role models or people we admire. They ask us to do something and we want to please that person and make that person happy. And so we do that. Sometimes we want to do it to atone for some sin in our life. And we know this isn't true. We know that the only way to be right with God is because of the death of Jesus Christ on the cross, he died in our place so we could be right with God. We can't earn salvation, but sometimes we start thinking that we can, right? We get that false thinking that, well, I've done this terrible thing. How do I make up for it? Well, let me go, let me go. I guess I'll serve in the nursery. And surely, like, serving in the nursery will atone for the sins of my life. And so we saw me serve in some way to make up for the bad in my life. Sometimes we even do it. And this isn't entirely bad, but sometimes we even do it from the good feelings we get. We do something for someone and it makes us feel good. And we want to feel that way again. And so we'll do something else for someone. But here's the thing. All of that wears off. Sometimes you stop getting recognition. And so you did it because you got recognized and then you stopped getting recognition. And then why are you doing it? Or maybe it was fun for a while, but it stopped being fun. And then what do I do when what was a fun thing to do, stops being a fun thing to do. What if, um, I, I, I, I felt really guilty and I did it, and now I don't think I did it very well. Now I feel even more guilty. You see, if you have the wrong motive, you're never going to get, um, you're never going to get where God wants you to be. We need to be willing to do things poorly with the right motive, instead of flawlessly with the wrong motive. Let love be our primary motive. Last week, Tyler preached from chapter 12. And he talked about how the body is made up of many parts. And 1st Corinthians 12, because it's a beautiful metaphor that there's all different parts of the body. Not everyone's the eyes or the mouth, the ears. I think you could call love the circulatory system of the body of Christ. It's love that courses through every part of the body. Every gift of the body. It fuels everything we do, it's fueled by love. Perhaps today, you've grown weary and serving. Perhaps today, you've gotten very frustrated in serving. Maybe you've been doing something and you're really discouraged today. Could it be because your motive was wrong? Maybe it was good at first, but somewhere along the way, you started doing the right thing for the wrong reason. And when you stopped getting the feelings you wanted, when you stopped getting the recognition you wanted, You've become very frustrated. You become discouraged, you become burnout. What is your mode of. Pray that God would give you a heart of love, that love would fuel everything you do. I went to Ecuador to learn Spanish. I took 3 weeks every day for 4 hours a day, in class, one on one with an instructor, in this institute that had a lot of other students in other classrooms. And I was the oldest by far. There was a, there was one guy that was gonna, gonna hike a couple of volcanoes and he wanted to take about a week of Spanish just to survive hiking a volcano. And there was a couple of med students there who were wanting to learn Spanish for the area where they wanted to practice medicine. The rest were college students doing study abroad semester. And so I'm here with all these college students, like, why is this old man in this class on this field trip? Well, going on field trips with all these college kids, like, and grandpa. And, um, It was so frustrating because they were taking like a semester of Spanish and put it into 3 weeks, right? So the 1st time in, I don't know, 30 something years, I'm doing homework and taking tests and going on a field trip. And I was so frustrated one day, and then I got in this Uber, I wanted to go to this museum, and the Uber driver, through my very limited Spanish. He finds out I'm a pastor. And he says, oh, you're a pastor. And he just had this burning desire to talk to me about a problem in his life. And he knew a little bit of English. And I knew a little bit of Spanish, and I was Google translating to fill in the gaps, and this guy was really struggling. His marriage was in crisis. He had separated from his wife. They had 2 children, and he didn't know what to do. His wife wants a divorce. He doesn't know whether to get a divorce, or try to fix his marriage, and he's worried about his kids. And I was so frustrated because this guy really wanted me to help him. He said, tell me, Pastor, what should I do? Tell me what to do. And I'm just Google translating, trying to talk. And I was so frustrated. But I got out of that Uber more motivated than ever before to learn Spanish because I really love this guy. I felt burdened by his problem and I thought, if I'm ever in the situation again, God, I want to be more helpful than I was to this guy. And so it changed my motive. And so what was frustrating, what was hard, what's difficult. It drove me more because it was driven more by, I love people, and I want to help people, and there's 600 million Spanish speakers on the planet. That's 600 million people that I might be able to help if I could somehow work a little bit harder at this. You see the difference? When your motive changes, it propels you through things that are difficult. It makes sacrifice a little easier. And so pray today, God, what is my motive? Am I discouraged? Am I weary? Am I burned out? Am I frustrated? Because my motive got out of place somewhere along the way? Is love, the circulatory system within the body? Will it fuel everything that we're doing for Jesus with the gifts he's given us? Now, we're going to move on to the next 5 points, okay? And I want to just pause here because there's going to be a common connection between the next 5 points. They're all going to begin with the phrase, love is choosing, love is choosing. Here's why they begin that way because what you're going to see in this list, in the next 4 verses, is that love is a choice you make, not a feeling that you have. Love in the Bible. is a verb, not a feeling. It's action, not some abstract idea. It's true biblical love is described in action words, not lofty, emotional concepts. Love is choosing to treat someone a certain way. Now let me make kind of a bold claim here. I think it might be possible that whatever problems you're having in relationships right now could be solved or could have been avoided by these next 4 verses. I think these 4 verses, rightly applied. I'm gonna make a bold claim here, okay? These 4 verses rightly applied might solve 90% of your problems today in relationships, whether it's in your marriage, with your children, in your workplace, with teammates, with people in your school, with people within your church family, in your social circles, is a really good chance, that if you could rightly apply the next 5 points of the next 4 verses, a lot of our problems that we're having today could could have been avoided, or could be solved. I want you to think of one right now. Don't say it out loud, okay? But think of the biggest relational problem you're having right now, the biggest interpersonal struggle you're having right now, your spouse in your family, with a friend, with somebody in our church. It's the biggest tension that you're having. And let's kind of like look at that through the lens of these X4 verses and see how these might help us here. Okay? Here's the next point. Love is choosing to exercise patience and kindness toward others. Love is making a conscious choice, to be patient and kind rather than impatient and rude. Verse 4. Love is patient and kind, really simple. 2 words, patience and kindness. Patience. To deal with someone, with patients, not in your circumstances, but with people. This is all about people. I'm going to bear with other people, no matter how they treat me, no matter how frustrating their actions are toward me, I'm going to show patience. How many of your problems today. Could have been avoided or might be fixed. If you could be a little bit more patient toward this person that's frustrating you, or that person could be a little bit more patient toward you right now, with your shortcomings, with your flaws. We all have flaws. How many of our issues need just a little bit more patience and the problems melt away. Kindness, kindness, to approach someone with gentleness, with a compassion, to be compassion, to be courteous, to be a little bit more tender natured in how we treat others, the opposite of harsh or angry or vengeful. How many of our problems could be solved with a little bit of kindness. Put these words together. Patience is kind of the passive side of love. And so I'm going to bear with you, no matter what you do, I'm going to like, let it go and not feel like I have to retaliate in some way. Kindness is the active side where when I do respond, I'm going to respond with grace and kindness and gentleness rather than how I kind of naturally want to respond. And this kind of commitment could ease a lot of tension. I would tell you, in my marriage, for example, some of our biggest fights, when we would fight for a little while, I know, like, you're shocked that the pastor would have a fight with his wife, don't be. When we break it, I go, where did this start? Like, what was the why are we mad at each other? And you try to like unpack it to see how you got back to the fight and you realize the thing was kind of dumb, really? that we fought over. The longer story, and if you've done our marriage study that we do a couple times a year, you've heard it. We almost broke up over a postage stamp where Carrie was supposed to mail a letter and it came back without a stamp on it, and still to this day, we're not sure what happened to the stamp. she was here, she would tell you her side of it. But, um, We got a big stupid fight because I was just kind of a jerk about a postage stamp. I mean, we just celebrate our 30th wedding anniversary. We have kids and grandkids, a beautiful life together. We almost had none of that because I was a jerk when the piece of mail came back without a stamp on it. Some of you saying, what's a stamp? You go to a museum, you can see them. And, uh, Because I was just a jerk about the postage stamp, right? You had a fight with someone just because you were not kind or they were not kind. He said, man, just a little bit of kindness. And we never would have had that fight. The problem you're having right now, just a little bit of patience. And you wouldn't be having that problem right now. Love is choosing to react. It was a brief time of my life in college. was a theater major for a few semesters. And I remember this professor saying, um, acting is reacting, that acting is, it's not just when you watch a play or you watch a movie, turning TV today. Someone doesn't say their line and then stand there while the other person says their line. And then they say their line. You're acting the whole time by reacting to what other people are saying to you. And that is true with the Christian life, isn't it? The Christian life is not about how always about how we act, but how we react. Some of our problems aren't stemming from our actions, they're stemming from our reactions. It's not what we did. It's the way we responded when something was done to us. And so if I could have just been patient. If I could have been kind, this might have solved this problem. I was doing marriage counseling with a guy one time, and he said, I think what I'm going to do is, I'm going to go home and write down a list of everything she does that bothers me and then share it with her when she gets home. I said, stop. Don't do that. Why don't you make a list of all the things you do that bug her and let's work on your list instead of making her list for her. It's like, let me be a little kind and patient and see how these problems might go away in my life. Next, love is choosing to put other people first. verse four. Love does not envy or boast. It's not arrogant or rude. It is not insist on its own way. It doesn't envy. Love rejoices and celebrates the successes of other people. Love ones, other people to win. It's not envious when other people prosper. It celebrates when the people in our lives win. It celebrates their success. Love does not boast or brag. It recognizes the good in others. It allows other people to get the credit to get the glory. See, so often our relationship problems stem from, we wanted the success, and they got the success. We wanted this and they got this. And love says, I'm going to celebrate when you win. And I'm going to be okay when I don't get the glory when I don't get the credit. It's not arrogant. is not rude. It doesn't insist on its own way. It puts other people first. It's devoted to the good of others. Now, that's hard to do, isn't it? Because that's counter to our nature. One of the things I realized in Ecuador. I notice a lot in other cultures, is that our problems are not unique to us. I was there a month. You talked about what I would meet with people, talk about the issues in their country. We talked about things like health affordable healthcare. We talked about things like inflation. We talked about things like immigration, and politics, and racism, and all the, all the topics that we debate here, they're debating over there. These aren't unique to our problems. Road rage is not an American problem. I was in the back of an Uber. Google translating phrases. Oh, that's a new one. Okay. I learned that they're as selfish as we are. Why? Because we're selfish people. I asked a friend. Tell me some phrases, like, what are some slang terms, some phrases? My favorite one, it translates, he said, when you're mad at a store because you're not getting good service at a store. And I said, oh, yeah, when you like want to speak to the manager, they said, yeah. I said, what do you say? They say, it translates, I want to speak to the owner of this circus and not these clowns. They get mad. They get mad and want to speak to a manager, just like we do. They get mad in traffic and honking you. Why? Because it's not a cultural thing. It's a condition of the human heart. We're selfish. We're selfish, and we're impatient, and we're rude, and that's every culture throughout the history of humanity. And so this is calling us to something different. That Jesus calls us to be kind instead of rude, to be patient instead of impatient, to put others 1st instead of ourselves first. So love begins to say, how am I going to respond when others succeed? How will I feel when I don't get the credit? What am I going to do when I don't get my way? Love celebrates what other people win. And love is okay when others get the credit that we feel might should have gone to us. Love is choosing to put others first. Love next is choosing to not overreact when wronged. It's making a choice not to overreact when I'm wrong. Verse five, it's not irritable or resentful. It's not irritable, or resentful, or six. It's it's some translate this word irritable. It's not provoked. It doesn't fly off the handle. It doesn't get easily angered. It's not touchy. You ever be around people. Maybe you're one of those people where the people around you have to walk on eggshells because you're going to easily get offended. We, we, we're all, it does seem like we're just always looking to be offended. I was looking for something to be upset about. Love doesn't do that. Love doesn't always isn't always on the lookout for something to be mad about, something to be offended by. It's not irritable. It not resentful. It doesn't keep score. Now, this word resentful can be translated. Sometimes it doesn't keep score or it keeps no record of wrongs. It doesn't hold people's past failures against them. How do you do with that? We're kind of guilty that, aren't we, of wanting to pull up something from the past to hold against someone. And you say, no, I'm pretty good about that. I can just kind of let that go. Really? Here's what I think here's how it operates. You never, so like, I'll be on, take, take pictures, and then my wife will have to look at any selfie that she's in and approve which ones I can put on Facebook or whatever. And I like to go through my photos and delete a bunch of them. I don't like to fill up my my photos, but. But Carrie will keep, she'll take 7 photos of the same pose and keep all seven. And I'm like, I'm going to delete these down to my favorite one. And so she'll look at my shoulder and she'll say, oh, don't delete that, don't delete that. It's too late to delete it. No, it's not, right? It's not really deleted, is it? Because you can go to the recently deleted folder, and you can find that picture you thought you deleted, and you can recover that photo. You know, I think that's what we do with past offenses. We delete them, but we keep them in a recently deleted folder. And in a relationship tension, in a conflict, we could go back and find it. And we go back to that recently deleted a fence folder in our brain, and we go find that thing that offended us, and we pull it back up, and we use it. We got to go not just delete it. You got to go into your deleted folder today. and forever delete it. I don't ever want to be able to recover this past hurt or this past wrong or this past offense. Stop digging into the recently deleted offenses. and pulling those in as ammunition in our conflicts. Love doesn't keep score. Love doesn't keep a record of past wrongs in a folder to be pulled out later. Let it go, forgive, move on, dig into that temporally deleted photo, a file, and let's get rid of it. Love is choosing to seek and celebrate what is right and true. Notice the sight of love. This is important. Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love does not rejoice with wrongdoing. It rejoices with the truth. It finds no joy in the unrighteousness of other people. It does not delight in the evil of other people. Love does not affirm a person's sin. When we love someone and we want God's best for their life, we lovingly confront the sin in that person's life. Love does not sweep unrighteousness under the rug. Love longs to see others do what is right. Love longs to see people, walk in holiness and righteousness. Love is choosing to never give up. Now, look at this, verse seven. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things endures all things. I used to read that, and think about my marriage that what that means is, Carrie and I together, we'll be able to bear, to believe, to hope, to endure all things. In other words, I thought that verse meant, no matter what, the world throws that us, together, we will endure it. You know what that verse really means in the context of 1st Corinthians? It actually means we have to put up with each other. It doesn't mean that we can together endure the hard things that life throws our ways, our way. It means that we have to endure the tough things about each other. That means in the body of Christ. It doesn't mean that Northland together. We're going to huddle together and we're going to endure whatever the world throws at us. No, it means we're going to have to endure all of the shortcomings of one another. We're going to have to put up with each other. We're going to be patient with each other. That's what these verses mean. There's all things. Bears all things. That actually literally means to cover something up. to throw a blanket over something. It means that we cover up shortcomings. How? It doesn't mean we cover up our own shortcomings. It's that we throw a blanket of grace and patience over the shortcomings of other people. Well, as in college, I had this old ratty couch, the cushions were all torn up, and I just got a blanket and just covered it up. I had an old car and the seats were getting torn and the stuffing was coming out. I just bought some seat covers and covered them up. I just took the thing that was ugly in my life and just covered it over. This is a saying, you cover up your sin. It means you have to throw a blanket over my sin because I'm going to let you down. I'm going to disappoint you. And if we're going to have a relationship in the body of Christ, you're going to have to throw a blanket of mercy and grace and patience over my shortcomings, and I'm going to have to do the same for you. We're going to have to bear with each other's shortcomings. We have to believe all things, verse 7 says. This means given the benefit of the doubt, not always trying to be offended, not always assuming the worst. I think we need to do a lot of rounding up instead of rounding down with other people. Not just always assuming the worst of them, but assuming the best of intentions. to really believe what's best, hope's all things. To set our hope on some future good, hoping that this can be fixed. This can be redeemed. This there can be growth and mercy and patience and kindness here, endures all things. Perpetually optimistic love. Love doesn't give up. Love doesn't quit. Notice the redundant use of all things, bears all things, believes all things, hopes, all things endures, all things, no matter what comes, our way. We're going to endure it. We're not going to give up. Love gives 2nd chances. Love never stops hoping for reconciliation, love stands firm, no matter what past or present, or future hurts, there might be. Finally, love is all that matters in the end. Love is all that matters in the end. Look at verse eight. Love never ends. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they'll pass away. As for tongues, they'll see. So as for knowledge, it will pass away. He said, all these things y'all are fighting about, these gifts, and you're bragging about, and you're boasting about in chapter 12. We're going to see it again in chapter 14. Oh, that's going to go away. There's going to be a day where there's no longer a need for prophecies. There was a day where there was a need for God to prophesy about what would come. There was a day for to prophesy to speak the truth in the lives of others. There'll be a day when everything comes to an end, there won't be need for that. There's a day when tongues will pass away. Now, there's a lot of debate with the gift of tongues. get into that next week. of there'll be a day when they'll cease. So some say they've ceased already and some say it's still active gift. The point is, no matter where you are, he says in verse eight. There's going to be a day where they are going to see. So they're never going to they're not going to be necessary, but love will endure forever. Verse nine. We know in part we prophesy part. When the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When as a child, I spoke like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. What he's saying? There's a children live for the temporary, for today, adults have a broader horizon than that. Today, you're worried about today, and the way these gifts are operating today. Love sees beyond that. Love sees there's something bigger than the conflict we're having today. Verse 12. For now we see in a mirror dimly. But then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. It's just about looking in a mirror. Well, in that day a mirror would not be glass like we have today. It would be some metal that would be polished until it reflected something. Imagine looking into a really, really, really shiny piece of metal. It's still pretty fuzzy. It's not a very good reflection. He said, day, we're looking at Jesus. So we're looking at the hope we have in Jesus, and it's a little bit fuzzy today. But one day you won't be looking at a mirror, you'll see him face to face, and then everything's gonna make sense. And that day, We'll see Jesus fully. And the need for prophecy and knowledge and tongues and all these gifts will be gone because we'll see him face to face. And that day, love is what matters. So today love should be our focus. And then he closes with these words. Now faith, hope, and love abide. These three. But the greatest of these is love. Now, if you've been with us, you'll know this book, 1st Corinth is written by amending Paul, who was a missionary of the early church, he wrote several other books of the New Testament, letters that are now books of our New Testament, and he often will link together these 3 words, faith, hope, and love. For example, and his letter we call the book of Colossians. He said, since we heard of your faith in Jesus, your love for all the saints, and the hope laid up for you in heaven. Faith, hope, and love. First, this, lonians one.3. He said, I remember before God, our God and Father, your work of faith, your labor of love and your steadfast hope. So often in his writings, he would link these 3 words together. In this writing, though, he says, of those three, there's one that is superior and that is love. Why is love greater than faith and hope. In what way is love greater than faith and hope. Because there'll be a day when you'll no longer need faith or hope. There's going to be a day. Today we're saved by faith. We put our faith in Jesus, we're made right with God because our faith in Jesus. Today you have to have faith to trust Jesus when you don't know what the future looks like. Today, we don't walk by sight. We walk by faith. We don't know what the future holds. There'll be a day and eternity where you won't need faith anymore because you'll be in the presence of Jesus. Today we have hope. When someone dies, we have hope that this world is not the end. We're diagnosed with a disease. We can have hope that when we die, we go be with Jesus. We think about death, we can have hope because one day as a follower of Jesus, we'll spend eternity with him. But one day when I'm with Jesus, I don't need hope anymore. There's gonna be a day in my life in your life, where you'll no longer need faith. You'll no longer need hope because you'll be standing in the presence of Jesus. But what you'll have then, you'll still have love, because 1st John 48 says, God is love. There'll be a day when faith and hope won't matter, but love still will. So why not today make love our focus? Why not today see the value of real, true love within the body of Christ? And here's the beauty of all this. We can experience the love of God because of what Jesus did for us, and it can motivate our hearts to love others that way. For example, he called us to be patient and patient and kind. You know, Romans 42, 24 says, it was the kindness of God that led us to repentance. We're saved because of God's kindness. So we should show kindness. We're told to put others first. Philippians 2 says Jesus did not regard equality with God a thing to be clutched to, but he let it go, and he took on the form of a servant, and he died on a cross, putting us ahead of his own glory that he had with the Father. His sacrifice for us. We're told to not keep a record of wrongs. Psalm 103 says that God, when we trust in God for forgiveness, he removes our sin as far as the east is from the west. In Hebrews 812, God says, I will remember their sin no more. So God's kindness saved us. Jesus' selflessness saved us. God's mercy removes our record of sin from us. And so we put our faith in Jesus and we receive all of that. We have the motive in our heart to now do that for others. So let me give you 5 questions as we wrap up our time. Number one, what is the true motive? behind my ministry. Uh, behind my ministry and service. What is the true motive? God search my heart. Am I doing the right thing for the wrong reason? God, give me a heart of love. Let me share my faith because of a love for the lost. Let me get involved in missions because of a love for the nations. Let me serve in the children's ministry of my church because of my love for the next generation. God, let me bring my talent to the worship team because I love seeing people worship you. Let me minister to those in my church family. because I love those who are struggling. Let me meet the needs in my community because I love those who are hurting, is love, the true motive behind my acts of ministry and service. Second, where do I need to exercise more patience and kindness? Is the problem that I'm having right now, in this relationship, family, friends, school church, wherever it is, is maybe the heart of this that I have been impatient and rude instead of patient and kind. Where specifically? Do I need to exercise more patience and kindness? Third, how can I put the needs of someone else ahead of my own? Where can I put the needs of others first? Where have I been selfish? Frustrated because someone else is getting the credit, unwilling to celebrate the winds of another? God, give me a heart of selflessness toward those in my life. Have I overreacted to a wrong I've suffered? Have I been carrying around in a recently deleted folder, something that I keep pulling back out. What I want to use it as ammunition in a conflict. Have I overreacted to a wrong that I've suffered? And then finally, have I given up when I should have endured? Have I given up? Have you given up on a relationship? And you read a verse 7, and you say, love endures. Love doesn't give up. You know, I've been at North on almost 30 years now, in that time, I preached a lot of sermons. And so it's fairly common now, at this point in my ministry, to preach a passive scripture that I had preached sometime years ago. As I always try to like study it fresh before I go pull that old sermon out, it kind of feels like it's plagiarism, even though it was mine. I still feel like it's cheating somehow. But after I've studied, I'll go pull up that old sermon. And they're kind of fun to read. Sometimes I think, gosh, that was terrible. How did anyone sit through that? And sometimes I'll read an old story and I'll go, oh, I remember that now. Well, that happened to me this week. I went back and pulled up the last time I preached 1st Corinthians 13. And I had a story in there as an illustration, at the end of my sermon, about a friend of mine named Adam. Adam was one of my best friends in high school, and he struggled from high school through most of his adult life with alcohol, addiction to alcohol. And it always wrecked relationships in his life. And when I preached that sermon, He was at a real low point. He had separated from his wife. He was living in his car and he had let down everybody in his life. He had just completely destroyed every relationship friendship that he had, including our friendship. And when I preached through 1st Corinthians 13, I got really convicted that I had given up on this friend of mine at a low point in his life. And I called him up on the phone. I don't know if you ever got the message because he was always losing his phone or getting it, whatever. It was hard to kind of keep tabs on. And I left him a voicemail and I said, hey, man, I just want to tell you that I haven't given up on you. And I'm not going to give up on you. And I left a message and I put it in my notes. Well, I went back this week and I found that. I remember that time. I remembered calling him. Now, listen, not every story has a happy ending. Sometimes we don't give up on people and it turns out great and sometimes it still doesn't work out. But I remembered that call, call the ad. what he's doing now? I got this off of his Facebook page. He's now 5 years sober, following Jesus, leading worship at his church and runs full-time, a ministry called Clear, getting people to turn from addiction to Jesus. And his wife, he was separated from, just retired as a school teacher, and now has joined his ministry, and they work together, everyday counseling couples, whose marriages are wrecked by addiction. The story of just don't give up. There's someone in your life like Adam. Who, who, it looks like it's over. And maybe they need to hear from you. I'm not going to give up on you. Maybe your spouse needs to hear that. Maybe a child needs to hear that. Maybe a friend needs to hear that. Someone in your life needs to hear you say to them, love doesn't give up, and I'm not gonna give up. Who is that in your life? Let's pray together. If you've never given your life to Jesus. He hasn't given up on you, he gave his life on the cross for you today. You can experience his kindness, his mercy, his grace by turning to Jesus, Jesus, would you forgive me? Would you save me? Jesus, I want to turn from my sin to trust you. If you are a follower of Jesus. Today, your good prayer could be Jesus, you didn't give up on me. I'm not going to give up on my wife, on my husband. on my kid, on my friend. My teammate. God help me to show grace and mercy, to be patient and kind, to celebrate the winds of others and to be okay when I don't get the credit. Jesus help us. to put others 1st as you've put, as you made the greatest sacrifice for us, let us be motivated by that, to put others 1st, as you have shown us kindness, let us be motivated to show kindness, as you have poured out your grace and mercy, you've separated our sins, as far as the east is from the west, let us delete, the past hurts and offenses. In the name of love. Let us choose love this week. Let us not give up. Remind us again that this is all that matters in the end. We need your help in Jesus' name. Amen.