Are you a lover? (Part 1)

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Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Avendroff. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing

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Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

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Now let's join Pastor Mike in progress as he preaches through the scriptures verse by verse with No Compromise.

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Have you ever been startled? I was super startled last night. Went on a long hike yesterday with Ken, took almost all day to hike.

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And when I got home, I quickly washed the dog because I brought the dog on this seven hour hike.

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And I thought, you know what, I want to get rid of the poison ivy off the dog and stuff like that. And I washed myself to get the poison ivy off of me and then did some things around the house.

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And then at one o 'clock last night, I thought to myself, I forgot to check for ticks.

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Since Kim and the kids are gone, I now let Jetty sleep up on this one little corner of the bed, cordoned off, yes, but she's up there.

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And I thought, oh no. So I brought her over into the light, got the flashlight out, 27 ticks.

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I was startling. It makes you kind of want to itch, doesn't it? So it was hard to go back to sleep after that.

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In light of what this passage says today, in light of what people say about this passage today, in light of how much this passage just yanked out of context in a startling way, let's turn to 1

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Corinthians chapter 13 as we go verse by verse. Some time ago, someone said to me that I said every time someone cast out a demon in the

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Bible, it went out. And then they showed me Matthew 17, where because of the disciples' lack of faith, it didn't.

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And I said to this person, yes, you're correct, and I need to stand corrected in that. But nonetheless, after Pentecost, when

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God gave the gift of miracles, every time someone who had the gift cast out a demon, it left.

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So just an update on that. I wanted to make a correction. 1 Corinthians chapter 13. We'll get through verse 7 this morning as we march verse by verse through this book.

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Now remember, just think big picture for a second. I'm standing back from the pulpit in the sense to get you to stand back and look at the passage before you dive into it.

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Paul is trying to correct the church. They've got all kinds of issues, and now they've got an issue with spiritual gifts.

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And there's a division going on in the church. Can you imagine the church of Christ Jesus? He bought with his blood, purchased by God, and the bride should be one, yet because of sin and because of pride and ego, the

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Corinthian church is becoming divisive. And now they're starting to divide about tongues, speaking another language that they never learned as a sign gift, that people with tongues are saying, look at us, we're at the top of the totem pole at the pecking order, and look at you, poor thing, you don't have tongues.

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And so there's a division, and Paul is trying to correct that in chapter 12. Then along comes chapter 13, and we tend to think of chapter 13 as something that we hang on our wall, some embroidered pillow, the love chapter, what man has brought together, let no man call asunder, and we do it for weddings.

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Now, if I come to your house and I see the Ten Commandments, I'm glad. If I see the fruit of the

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Spirit as a little throw pillow, the fruit of the Spirit, it usually is a typo, and it's got the fruits of the

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Spirit, I'm glad for that. And I'm glad if I come to your house and you have some wedding vows and you have 1

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Corinthians 13, I'd be glad because it's still the Bible. But when

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Paul wrote 1 Corinthians 13 to Corinth, it wasn't for weddings, it wasn't for marriage, it wasn't for embroidered facial towels for husbands and wives, his and hers.

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It was to correct them, it was to rebuke them. No wonder the world loves 1

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Corinthians 13, because by itself, ripped out of context, it has nothing to do with Christianity at all, it has nothing to do with substitution and atonement, the death of Christ, what self -sacrificial love is.

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Mormons could subscribe to it, atheists could say, yeah, love, that's probably what you should do, Buddhists would like it, moralists would like it.

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So what we want to do as Christians is when we parachute into chapter 13, to know what comes before it and know what comes what, after it, because context is king.

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So what is the context? Let's go back to chapter 12, verse 31, and it gives us a little idea.

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He says in chapter 12, verse 31 of 1 Corinthians, but earnestly desire the higher gifts.

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Now before the smoke starts coming out of your ears and you say, how do I desire a gift if God sovereignly gives me a gift at salvation, 1

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Corinthians 12 has already taught that, you can't desire to have a gift of teaching if God saved you and you don't have the gift, you get what you get.

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So how could Paul say, desire these gifts earnestly and zealously? Well, but the answer is because he's talking to the church and their plural pronouns.

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Church at large, don't you want to have people who have the top of the list gifts?

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And he says you should desire that. You guys, the Corinthians, are desiring tongue speakers, I'm telling you,

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Paul said there's something at the top of the list, what is at the top of the list? Verse 28 of chapter 12.

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You want a list of gifts and how they're ranked? Paul ranks them in chapter 12, verse 28, which we saw last

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Sunday night. And God has appointed in the church, the highest gift of all, first apostles

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Corinth. You want tongue speakers? Desire apostles. If you want to desire something as a collective body, go for apostles.

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Second, prophets. Third, teachers. Then comes the showy stuff that you guys,

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Corinthians, are desiring, but you shouldn't because there are three things more important than that, apostles, prophets, and teachers.

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Then miracles. Then gift of healing, helping, administration, or administrating.

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And then like Paul always does, puts tongues that the Corinthians had at the top of the list, he puts at the bottom of the list for de -emphasis and various kinds of tongues.

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Now back to verse 31, but earnestly desire the higher gifts. Apostles, prophets, teachers, you want tongue speakers?

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You as a church should desire apostles. But there's a way to go about using your gifts, and he leads into that at the end of verse 31.

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And I will show you a still more, what, excellent way.

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I'm going to show you a way of life so that when you use your gifts, you do it with the right motives and in the right manner.

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And if you don't do it with love as a motive or love as the manner, it doesn't matter who you are.

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So big picture, chapter 12, Paul is trying to correct what they think about the gifts, and then 13, supposed to be there.

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It's so odd. Some commentators, the liberals say, Paul didn't write it, added in later.

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No, it's supposed to be there because he's trying to show you that if you use your spiritual gift of teaching, here you,

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Bethlehem Bible Church, teaching helps, encouragement, administration. If you use your gifts in a way that's not thinking about the other person and what's best for them, you're just like the

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Corinthians. So as we analyze the passage, it'll be good for us to see what Paul says to the church of Corinth.

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But this is good for us too. Everyone here needs to operate more in love, and agape love, which is 1

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Corinthians 13, is an other -oriented love. Think about our society today.

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When I say love, if I was playing a word association game with the media or the entertainment societies, and I said love, their response back is going to be some kind of sensual, sexual, selfish kind of love.

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Now, that is a biblical word, eros, that in marriage it's fine and healthy and God -glorifying.

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There's another Greek word for love is Philadelphia love, the city of what? Brotherly love.

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Phileo, that's a good love. There's many instances in the Bible that it's used of with commendation.

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There's family love. You should have a good dose of family love today for your dad, right?

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Family love, storge. But this is different. This is agape love, and the world doesn't know what it's like, and Corinth didn't know what it was like, so Paul wants to make sure they know.

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It's like three years ago, driving down the street with my son and two other men in the back, two other young boys.

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They were probably 14, 15 years old, taking them to a skate park, and we drove past a church.

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Now, when I used to drive past churches when I was younger, I never even really paid attention, but now I'm in ministry, and I just want to see

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Unitarians universally accepted for unity, and I look at them, or this particular

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Baptist church, Free Will Baptist, and I just kind of like to look at churches. So we drove past this one, and my son said, look at, it's in Taunton, agape fellowship.

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And my son's friend said, it's agape, you idiot.

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And of course, I was a pastor and wanted to make sure I was loving and everything, so I turned my head over my shoulder, and I said, it's agape.

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I said something else after that. We think of love as I get.

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Paul says, love is going to be based on what God does. For God so loved the world he gave.

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It's a giving love. When you say in counseling, I don't love my wife anymore, then my response is, then repent and get going.

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You're saying the words, I don't feel romantically inclined towards my wife anymore, and I'm saying the biblical word is, do things for her benefit.

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It's a command, love your wife. And it is a command to not only love the

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Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind, and strength, but love your neighbor as yourself. This is an other -oriented love.

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This is, I want what's best for you. At my cost many times, and think about Calvary, at the cost of God, at the cost of his own son, the father's son, he gives his son for us.

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Now, this agape love, before we look at it any closer, is not a love that says, you're lovable, therefore

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I'll do it. Oh, you know what? You've got so much value, so much worth.

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I will love you because you're lovable. Now, think about how God loves us. While we were yet dead in our trespasses and sins, right?

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We are hostile to God, unable to serve God. Loving our sins would kill

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God if our arms were long enough and powerful enough. And yet God, based on his own sacrificial love, gave himself for us.

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Not because we were lovable. Never fall for that trap. God don't make no junk. You know,

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I'm somehow this lovable person. That demeans God by saying, you know what?

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You've got love in you. That's why God loves you. No, you've got nothing in you that's good. But since he is love incarnate, since he is the excellent one who loves, he loves not because of you.

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He loves you in spite of you. That's the kind of love. You can't offer me anything, but I'm going to love you anyway.

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So that's what agape love is. So let's read this more excellent way for Corinth and for our church as well.

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And I'll read verses one through seven for our passage today. If I speak in the tongues of men, notice how

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Paul is talking. Lots of singular first person. I, men of angels, men of, because of, let me start over.

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If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

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If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love,

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I'm nothing. He didn't say I'm next to nothing. I'm nothing. If I give away all

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I have and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

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Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant.

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Are rude. It does not insist on its own way. By the way, as I read these, this is exactly what

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Corinth was, but the opposite, right? So if his love is patient, they weren't patient.

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And here it says it does not insist on their own way. They are insisting on their own way. The context is

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Corinth. There's more to be said about love, a lot more. But Corinth needed to hear this. There's a checklist, 15 things about love that they weren't doing that they need to check off by the spirit's power.

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Because after all, the fruit of the spirit is. You know how

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Corinth would answer that question? The fruit of the spirit, Galatians 5, 22 is now they'd answer that question.

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Tongues, but the fruit of the spirit is love.

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Verse five are rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful, does not rejoice at wrongdoings, but rejoices with the truth.

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Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things and endures all things.

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If the title of the message today is what's love got to do with it? It's got to do everything with using your spiritual gifts for other people with the motive and method and manner of love, having an interest for one another.

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How many people have the word charity is? Anybody have the word charity is?

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Some have charity. I know what kind of translation you use. And charity was used by Wycliffe originally because when he looked at Jerome's Vulgate, Jerome knew not to put a more in because it was more like eros.

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So he put keratos in which was more like agape. But he was going from Latin to Greek.

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So if you see charity and its fruits, the Jonathan Edwards book, you'll know it's talking about love.

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Leon Morris, the great scholar, said agape is a love lavished on others without a thought whether they are worthy or not.

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It proceeds from the nature of the lover, not from any attractiveness in the beloved.

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Forget the sensual love of the world and think about the sacrificial love of Christ Jesus on Calvary.

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Then you've got the idea of what love is. It is a reflection of the love of God.

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Ephesians chapter 5, husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church. And what's the next word?

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And what's the word after that? Gave himself up for her. First Timothy 2,

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Jesus gave himself as a ransom for all. Titus 2, who gave himself for us to redeem us from all lawlessness.

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And so when you have spiritual gifts because you're a Christian, you do have them. Your gifts are for other people and you want what's best for them.

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By the way, as I before I get into this any further, this kind of thinking love will forever set our minds straight.

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So we don't say, you know what? I serve at the church, but nobody ever notices. Nobody's ever thanked me.

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I've never got a gift certificate. I've never got a card. Not even, you know, thanks a lot.

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I notice you. I didn't get any of those things. Now, should we encourage one another?

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Yes, but that's not love. If you do it, wanting that in return. Say, well, you know,

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I just don't know about church anymore. I run into people like this all the time. I don't know about church anymore.

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You know, a lot of people let me down. There's a lot of people that they just let me down. Here's what this beacon is telling me right now.

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You're not thinking biblically and according to love because you're going there because you're getting something.

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And when people don't measure up, and by the way, nobody measures up. People are going to let you down.

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And if we want to talk fleshly, I've got more people who have let me down than I've let you down. It's a long line of list of people.

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But friends, I don't do ministry when I'm thinking rightly for ultimately you.

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Ultimately is for the glory of God. And then it trickles down into your good. And if you respond, I'm happy.

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I like to be encouraged. But I don't say to myself, I've really been burned by church.

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How about have you burnt yourself out loving other people? Because if you say I've been burned by church and then you have one of two options, three options, stay where you are and be bitter.

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That's not love. Go someplace else and it'll all happen again to you because there are sinners at that other church too.

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And there's a third one, but I can't think of it right now. It's not good. Oh, or you stay at home and you do

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TV church, which is the antithetical of love because how do you serve other people there?

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If you're sick and you can't get out and you want to turn on, you know, watch John MacArthur on satellite

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TV? I don't care about that. But I'm saying for Sunday after Sunday after Sunday, no, no,

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I won't go. And by the way, for people who say, I'll go to church once every eight weeks, that's unloving.

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You think you're only going to go because once in a while you got to throw in a chip to God or something, but it's for other people.

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God, you love them. You gave your son for them, but I'll go when I want to go. I got other things to do.

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I met with somebody this week and they said to me, my life is full of frustration.

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And as we got talking, I found out that this particular person is not prioritizing things rightly.

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And then they said, well, you know what? But I have some commitments on Sunday that aren't church related and aren't

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I'm an emergency doctor at a trauma center kind of commitment or in the military. And I said, well, if you want to keep having your own personal priorities,

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Trump, the worship of Jesus Christ, the almighty God, enjoy your continued frustration.

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Because you're built to serve others. And when you do, you feel good. And when you pour yourself out for other people and reflect the love of Christ in you, you feel good.

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And when you don't feel good, you ought to recheck yourself and say, the more I turn inwardly in the black hole of myself, the worse

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I feel. It's the goodness of God to give you nerves. Nerves.

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So when you touch the oven, you go out. And when you feel bad, then you can say, you know what?

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I want to make sure I pour myself out in an agape way for other people, because when

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I act like a pagan, I feel like a pagan. So Paul's argument in first Corinthians 13 is essential.

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This is not some digression. It's essential for the argument of Paul. And the way you do things is more important than what you do.

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So let's take a look at verses 1 to 3 to start. And he gives three hyperbolic statements so you understand that love is necessary.

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If I were to put this in preaching terms, your love for the body is necessary.

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Loving other people is needful for you to do at Bethlehem Bible Church. What we're after is not power like the

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Romans or intellect like the Greeks. We're after love like Christians. Three hypothetical illustrations.

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The first one is found in verse one. Now, again, it's hypothetical.

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He says, if I speak in the tongues of man, a language of man and of angels, there's no such thing as angelic language that we know of in the

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Bible. But that's not Paul's point. Paul says, you speak in tongues. What if I speak in tongues of men and angels?

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What if I can do more than you? What if you're here at K2 and I'm up here at Mount Everest?

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I can do more than you. But if I don't have love, what's he say? I'm a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

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Don't waste your time. What's angelic language? When you're in heaven, you'll figure it out.

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And my guess is it's going to sound pretty much like the language that you're talking up there. If the angels say around Isaiah six, holy, holy, holy.

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So, Lord God Almighty, the whole earth is full of his glory. My guess is you'll probably understand what the angels are saying in heaven.

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Now, notice what Paul does here in verse one. If I speak in the tongues of men. Oh, finally,

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Paul put tongues at the top of the list. Finally, it's up there. And he puts it at the top of the list so he can take the rug and go like that.

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I always admire those people that could set the kitchen table and then pull the tabletop off and everything's still sitting there.

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Finally, they're mentioned first, but he brings them back down to their own area code by saying, you know what?

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If you don't have love, you're nothing. He uses himself as an illustration. The point is not what's an angel sound like.

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The point is, if you don't have love, no matter what you're doing here at this church, you sound like a noisy gong.

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See the text there? A noisy gong. Corinth was famous for their bronze gongs, noisy gongs, reverberating gongs.

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The gong show. Some of you who are old enough to watch the gong show. Or a clanging cimbalon.

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It sounds just like our English word, cimbalon. No tune, one note.

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Hit it over and over and over and over and over and over the dog across the street that will not stop barking.

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Bugs you. You want to put some kind of white noise fan on in your room and some earplugs to boot because it is bugging you.

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And so for our church, we say, oh, someone has the gift of teaching, but they're not looking out for other people in love and want what's best for them.

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Clashing, cacophonous, bang on the drum and on the gong. It's torture, isn't it?

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After an hour or two of that, gong. So Paul is using this illustration because he knows the love of God in Christ Jesus.

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First John 410. This is love, not that we love God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice or propitiation for our sins.

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He gives another hypothetical found in verse two, again, trying to show us and them love is needed.

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And if I have prophetic powers, oh, isn't that interesting? It's all about tongues and prophecy for the Corinthians.

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So he starts off with tongues. Now he's talking about prophecy. And I understand all mysteries.

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Paul understood a lot of mysteries. But even if he knew more than what he does, a mystery is not mysterious like an island.

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It is you can't figure something out unless God tells you. So now God tells Paul a lot. But what if God told

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Paul more than what he did? But if he didn't have love, he says, I am nothing.

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He says, I could even have all faith as to remove mountains. But if I don't have love, I am nothing. Again, trying to get the people to think through with this hyperbolic statement.

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Hypothetical statement is probably what I should say. I've got the best prophetic gift. I've got faith to move the proverbial mountains, but I don't have love.

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I'm nothing. of God's Word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

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Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 830 and 11 a .m. and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m.

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We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org

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or by phone at 508 -835 -3400. The thoughts and opinions expressed on No Compromise Radio do not necessarily reflect those of WVNE, its staff or management.