The Greatest of These Is Love - Christopher G. Brenyo

Ascension Presbyterian Church Longwood

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1 Corinthians chapter 13, verse 1, this is

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God's holy and infallible word. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love,

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I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faiths that I can remove mountains, but have not love,

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I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

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Love suffers long and is kind. Love does not envy.

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Love does not parade itself, is not puffed up, does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil, does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

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Love never fails, but whether there are prophecies, they will fail.

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Whether there are tongues, they will cease. Whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away.

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For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

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When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child.

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But when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.

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Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known. And now abide of faith, hope, love, these three.

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But the greatest of these is love. Please pray with me.

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Lord Jesus, we rejoice that there was a conflict to be addressed in Corinth, that we might be instructed as your people throughout the ages.

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In every church, in every city, in every country, we need to hear this message.

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Oh, Lord, forgive us for our lack of love. Forgive us for allowing our love to grow cold for you and for each other.

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I pray in the power of your spirit that love would abound all the more as we consider what

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Christ has done for us. We ask these things in Jesus name. Amen.

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Please be seated. This is the third installment in 1

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Corinthians 13. It will be the last installment of this great section. And it's important to remember the context because that drives a lot of what

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Paul's argument is. This section is filled with little quotes that we hang in our houses.

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And it's on little cards. And often we detach these great sayings, these quaint little sayings about love from the larger context of 1

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Corinthians. And in doing so, we may miss some of the importance of what

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Paul is teaching us here. Corinth was a very divided place. It had many schisms.

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And we know in this section that men in this church particularly valued speaking in tongues.

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Above other gifts. And Paul has been rebuking them ultimately for their lack of love in all of this.

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So the love chapter is about setting a church back on the right course.

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Not only corporately, but individually as the members implement and put into practice the principles that God has set forth in his word.

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So today we're going to again look at verse 8. We're going to continue through verse 13.

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I have several points. I'm going to give them to you first because I may not go through them as systematically in the message.

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First, very simply, love never fails. The first part, the first phrase of chapter 8.

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We're going to revisit that subject even though we talked about it a little last week. Second, we're going to consider our present imperfection.

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Our present imperfection. One of the things that's going to come through loud and clear for us here in Paul's teaching in Corinth is that our hearts should be looking toward heaven a bit more than they are.

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And I believe the Corinthian, part of the Corinthian error is that they felt like they had reached the zenith of spiritual experience particularly in this practice of speaking in tongues.

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Paul assures them and us of our present imperfection. Number two. Third, our future perfection.

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There will come a day where we will not see dimly. We will not be looking at a mirror.

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We will not be seeing in part. We will see Christ face to face.

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And what a glorious day of rejoicing that will be. Number three, our future perfection.

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Fourth, an appeal to logic. The transition from infancy to adulthood.

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The Corinthians were not too keen about their progress in growing up in the faith. They were very happy with experiencing external gifts.

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Paul calls them to put away childish things. No doubt he has in mind the squabbles and the divisions and the petty things that had set

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Corinthian against Corinthian. Next, there is a hope -filled promise.

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And finally, the superiority and permanence of love.

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Let's begin in verse 8. Love never fails. Love is permanent.

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In contrast to the other spiritual gifts which the Corinthians prize so highly.

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It says, when it comes to prophecies, they will fail. When it comes to tongues, they will cease.

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When it comes to knowledge, it will vanish away. And the prophecies failing is not merely the failure to predict future events, but that the need for this kind of prophetic under -utterance in the predictive sense will cease because the fulfillment

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Christ ushered in and the Apostles' doctrine which is beginning to be codified in the churches will ultimately lead to the canon of Scripture.

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Looking to the future, looking for the Messiah, all of these things now are less important because Christ has come and now his teaching is now being disseminated through the

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Apostles' doctrine and the church is beginning to recognize the body of truth which is the faith, the apostolic faith, so the prophecies will fail.

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The tongues will cease. I believe that the speaking in tongues sign gift has ceased because of the full manifestation of God's revelation which is found in the

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Spirit -inspired Holy Scriptures. If we believe that God has delivered to us all that we need for life and godliness, why are we looking to fallible men to give us little glimpses of revelation?

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He's given it to us fully in this infallible, inerrant, authoritative, insufficient word.

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We lack nothing that we need for life and salvation in the pages of Scripture. The Holy Spirit has assured that the church would possess and have insight into an illumination in the

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Holy Scriptures. There's going to be a vanishing away of knowledge.

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In this case, I believe there were people who had the gift of knowledge, a special external spiritual gift, and they had it to discern matters facing the church in the earliest days.

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A spiritual gifting, a special spiritual gifting, may be limited to a few, which the

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Corinthians were very keen upon. They liked the idea of a few elite people possessing these kinds of powers.

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But today, we have the full manifestation of God's revelation, and the ministry of teaching the

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Word through the preaching and hearing of the Word is not limited to just an elite few people, but is given to the church as a whole.

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The Word of knowledge has come not to a couple of individuals, but to Christ's body corporately.

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So we look at the first part of this. Paul's making a very strong argument, of course, this contextually, as he's rebuking the practice, the esteem that the

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Corinthians have of spiritual gifting, and they've neglected this weightier matter of love.

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And he says, love never fails, but these other things will. We're going to learn more about that as we continue.

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What about our present imperfection? It says in verse 9,

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For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. No Christian is perfectly freed from sin, nor is he perfect in knowledge.

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You're going to find this very surprising. John Calvin is not infallible. The greatest heroes of our faith are not infallible.

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There are imperfections in their doctrine. There is imperfection in yours, in mine, in every

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Christian. There's a sense in which we have an incomplete knowledge. We know all that we need.

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We know what we have to be saved. We know the body of truth that we must embrace in Christ in order to be saved.

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But our knowledge, our understanding is imperfect.

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And certainly the noetic effects of sin, even our minds have been affected by sin.

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There is something, a kind of an incipient Pelagianism that resides even in us who are reformed.

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We sometimes think that we in our minds have this perfect objective neutrality.

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We're able to discern because our minds are perfect and we're free from contamination, that we can discern right and wrong perfectly.

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We can understand all truth because our mind hasn't been affected by sin.

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But I believe the Scripture teaches a radical corruption of sin in the lives of all people, even believers.

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And that radical corruption, that total depravity, touches and even affects our ability to think clearly and properly.

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Now, we're going to learn a little bit later that God has done something in salvation to begin to undo that.

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And there is a grace that exists for the believer that enables him to discern spiritual things in a way the unbeliever is incapable of.

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But we have an imperfect understanding. And I believe this is a jab.

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I believe there must have been some at Corinth who thought they had arrived and had a perfect understanding.

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Prophecy is connected to the heralding of truth. We see human frailty and weakness, but also a demonstration of the

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Holy Spirit's power. And this is very interesting because Paul says elsewhere that his weakness puts on display the working of God's Spirit in and through him, the proclamation of Christ's Gospel.

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We've experienced that as believers when we share the Gospel with someone and the Lord gives us the words.

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We are weak and frail, but in that moment, the grace of God is there, and the Holy Spirit is there to attend our words and even to give us the words to say.

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And sometimes we walk away from that. I don't even know where those words came from. I don't remember reading that Bible passage recently, and the

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Holy Spirit brought it to mind. So our weakness also puts on display the glorious grace and power of God both through Christ and the

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Holy Spirit enabling us to believe on the one hand and even to share His truth and His Gospel with others.

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So we're an imperfect people. We haven't arrived. And in humility, we need to remember that we are fragile.

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There are holes in our doctrine. There are weaknesses in our faith. There are omissions in our practices.

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We are not perfectly living the Christian life. And that should cause us to consider number three.

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There will be a day where we will experience perfection. Verse 10 says,

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When that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

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I think, I've said this a couple of times in the recent years, that I think our doctrine of heaven is in a little bit of disrepair.

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We forget that the vast majority of our existence as creatures will be in the presence of God in eternity.

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Our lives are but a vapor. We live here a brief time fulfilling our calling, our vocation for the

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Lord, serving Him zealously without reservation. But the bulk of eternity will be spent for us in that perfect state.

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What a glorious thought. Have you ever been grieved by your sin? What about your aching body as you get older?

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Have you ever been grieved by that? There will be a day for the Christian where those things will no longer be.

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The Christian will no longer wage war against sin, nor will the Christian feel the horrifying effects of sin.

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They will be set free for that. And we as God's people, we should long for that day. We should delight at the prospect of being with God, to see

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Christ face to face, forever. A future perfection.

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One of the great articulations of this comes from two places. It really probably started with Augustine and of course was famously put together by Thomas Boston.

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And this is the four -fold state of man. I'm going to give that to you so you might get a picture of what

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Paul is talking about, really help us understand the relationship between being redeemed and regenerate and being sanctified in a future of glorification.

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The transition that's happening to us. First, there is what

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Boston calls a primitive integrity. Of course this is

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Adam and Eve before the fall. A primitive integrity.

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Second, there is man's entire depravity.

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This is mankind after the fall. Again, these are the four -fold states of man.

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Primitive integrity, freed from sin, the fall had not occurred.

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Adam and Eve in that period of time, however short that may have been, between creation and the fall.

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And then man after the fall. The third, there is a recovery.

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And this is glorious. There is a recovery in this state of man.

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All of mankind is plunged into depravity and total corruption. And redemption comes in Christ.

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A recovery has begun. That's the third one. Redeemed in Christ. And fourth, there's a consummate happiness for the elect.

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And there is misery for the reprobate. The fourth state of man.

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A consummate happiness or a consummate misery.

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I'm going to go back now to Augustine's and I'll spare you the Latin terminology, but give you

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Augustine's thesis, of which I believe is the root of what Boston taught.

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Here's the first state. You've got to stay with me, children. Stay close with me here because it will be a little bit confusing.

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Number one, this is Augustine's thesis about the state of man. Number one, able to sin, able not to sin.

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This is the state of Adam and Eve in the garden. They were free from sin, but they had the capacity for sin.

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And they did sin in the garden. So the first state of man is able to sin and able not to sin.

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And ultimately they tipped over being to able to sin being the most prominent.

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Second, not able to not sin after the fall.

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It goes from being able to sin or able not to sin after the fall you're not able to not sin.

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Total corruption. Radical depravity. Not able to not sin.

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But then there's something that we forget in the third state for regenerate man able not to sin.

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So something that happened now as believers for us in Christ we have been regenerated in such a way that we are no longer slaves of sin.

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Think about the book of Romans chapter 6. We are no longer slaves to sin.

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And some of us kind of have a distorted view of us even as Christians we say well we're sinners all

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I can do is sin there's no other thing I can do. You're going to continue to sin because of that imperfection of point two.

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But you must understand the power of the gospel is so real that you are now given the capacity to walk in newness of life.

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You do not have to be enslaved to sin as one who is redeemed. The regenerate man, number three is able not to sin and number four this is so glorious can you imagine the fourth person the fourth state of Augustine the glorified man is unable to sin.

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I think Paul was wanting them to see you guys are imperfect you're not loving each other you're not seeing yourselves right but there's hope for all of us.

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One day as believers it will be in glory we're going to have to die we're going to be unable to sin.

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Our own Christian experience testifies to these truths our continued sin and unbelief should cause us to not only strive against sin and pursue righteousness but we should earnestly desire to be perfectly clothed in Christ's righteousness in heaven.

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The Christian should long for this. Recovery in the third state is obviously underappreciated.

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We are able to choose obedience and to flee sin as redeemed people because we are no longer in bondage to sin.

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Again, number one the state of innocence, number two the state of nature, the natural man the sinfulness of man's natural state, corruption of the will, the misery of man's natural state, the inability of man's natural state his need for divine grace and then third the state of grace which is regeneration mystical union with Christ and then fourth the eternal state death distinctive differences between the righteous and wicked at their death the resurrection the judgment, the kingdom of heaven for God's people and an eternal hell for the reprobate.

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Paul's argument the advantages of the coming eternal state for each believer is praiseworthy should be sought after.

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Let's continue on in our text verse 11 an appeal to logic have you ever seen a 55 year old guy dressed like a teenager?

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Do you know what I'm talking about? Wearing the latest styles that the high school age kids were wearing it's hard to look at something not right about it and I think we may not be able to catch it for ourselves but I think this is a pretty strong jab at the

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Corinthians. He says effectively your behavior is childish you're excited about the wrong things you're excited about cotton candy and there's steak on the table you're looking at these external things and you're looking at them improperly you're valuing them and prizing them and it's time now to grow up in maturity and I think this is a call for us as well we need to esteem love and we're going to find here by the end of this that love is really central it has a prime place of importance in the

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Christian life both now and in the future that some of these other areas don't because of its lasting nature love is going to be in heaven for eternity.

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Faith and hope aren't going to be there. We're going to learn more about that in just a minute. When I was a child I spoke as a child

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I understood as a child I thought as a child but when

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I became a man I put away childish things the Corinthians felt that they had received and had a perfect knowledge

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Paul corrects them here and says you need to look forward to something better you need to mature in the faith, you need to grow up in the matters of love there's one thing

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I've been impressed with dealing and sadly there seems to be a crisis in this area but if you've ever been around a godly older person an aged person over 75, 80 years old if you've ever been around them there is this clarity of perspective that they have the wisdom of years that they have that helps them cut through and see through all the nonsense.

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Children young adult children even you must listen to the wisdom of your parents they have seen life they've gone down the path which you intend to walk upon and you need to look to them for guidance because they have made mistakes and they can see with greater clarity about the various issues of life they're not blown and tossed by everything that comes down the pike like we are when we're in our youth.

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So children, you think you know it all you think you're smart and you are you're becoming godly men and women but you still need the wisdom of your parents.

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I'm almost getting to 18 to 20 years of ministry and I still need the wisdom of older men in the faith, older wiser pastors who have been through the battles.

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Wives you need to reach out to older ladies, to grandmas who have raised children and raised grandchildren.

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You might understand better about how you're to live as a woman. All of us need this progress and this movement toward maturity and I believe that's what

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Paul is calling them to say It's time to put childish things away It's time to be a mature

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Christian and to put away some of this pettiness, this unloving behavior that exists in church

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Number 5 There is a hopeful promise

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There has been this movement this progression forward positively.

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We now behold the glory of Christ We really do see something of the glory of Christ.

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We have tasted and seen that the Lord is good Our sins have really been forgiven.

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We really in the depths of our heart know it and believe it. But can you imagine the fullness of heaven when all of that imperfection all of that misunderstanding all of that mistranslating misapplying of scripture all of that will be clear to us

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We'll be able to see him face to face Today now we see dimly as in a mirror then we'll see face to face

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I think have you ever held up a mirror like in the bathroom in the old medicine cabins you just have mirrors on and you turn the mirror and you look into the mirror and you look in through that mirror and there are hundreds of mirrors as far as your eye can see

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I think that picture is very good for us There is a big difference for us seeing it in that kind of distorted way from us seeing it face to face

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We see through the hundred mirrors we see all through there but our vision is blurred it's a little bit distorted we don't have the clearest picture of what and whom we are looking at namely

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Christ and his glory but we will see that we will see it perfectly completely we had an incomplete knowledge we will have a complete knowledge of Christ and all the benefits of adoption of sons

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Now let's get to Paul's closing argument in 1 Corinthians 13 for the primacy of love

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I know in part but I'm going to know as I am also known

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I see in a mirror I see it dimly, darkly but I'm going to see clearly face to face and Paul argues now for the superiority and permanence of love and now abide faith hope and love these three but the greatest of these is love the first thing

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I want to clarify is Paul is not saying anything negative about faith or hope here this very important little basic hermeneutical lesson to assert something strongly and positively doesn't negate everything else in the world sometimes when we read scripture we think that Paul is anti -law or he's anti -obedient he's pushing forth grace so strongly we know this is not true

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Paul is not saying anything disparaging about faith or hope well what is faith?

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faith is peculiar to God's people, to the elect it's a fruit and effect of electing saving grace it continues it abides because it is a work of God an operation of his spirit it is the grace by which a person sees

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Christ flees to him lays hold of him and relies and receives him faith is essential to the

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Christian but faith is temporary remember Paul has given us a heavenly lesson here when

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I get to heaven as a glorified man I will no longer need faith because I'll have vision

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I'll have sight it'll be actual I'll be able to touch it, it'll be tangible to me there's something else here, there's hope hope has been planted in us through regeneration in Christ we know the promises of God are for us because of this

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God -given hope and we patiently wait for them hope is believing the promises of God will come true for us the

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Christian should be filled with hope we place great confidence in things not yet seen, longing for the realization of them and hope

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John Gill said, Christ prays that faith would fail not hope on him is an anchor sure and steadfast and nothing can separate from the love of Christ these graces abide now during the present life he who has true faith in Christ shall die in it and he that has a good hope through grace shall have it in his death and love will outlive death and be in its height in glory in the other world

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I'm going to say that again love will outlive death and be in its height in glory in the other world that's why

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Paul says the greatest of these is life there are a lot of things that we forget are temporary great things like faith and hope the bulk of our time will be with Christ in the fulfillment of all of that all of that faith all of that hoping, all of that waiting all of that longing will be realized and the permanent kind of reaction we'll have to him and to each other is one of love the greatest of these is love love is more permanently useful a man's faith is personal he communicates it he implores men to share in it

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I want every person here to believe the gospel of Jesus Christ but I can never implant my faith or hope in another only

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God can do that love is different it's more durable, it's more lasting in the future world faith will give way for vision hope will be replaced with enjoyment love will endure and abide forever it will be fully perfect and be the constant in eternity now we must heed

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Paul's inspired teaching here and appropriate it for ourselves the question is how do we do that I have a couple ideas by way of application to help us consider first we need to highly prize and esteem the best gift which is given to the church and that's the gift of love and I think that great statement that God is love is giving a little bit more weight and meaning to us if we properly understand what

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I love now love is outward reaching it goes out from me to others the trinity has shed the love of God into the hearts of men and brought men into that love and fellowship of the trinity they love so much that it has to go outward it can't just remain within the persons of the trinity they must give it to those whom they are going to redeem number two you and I need to war against that unloving spirit that crops up in us it's a contradiction to Christ's gospel we need to mortify that and put that to death in us when that unloving thought or attitude or action starts to well up in you you now it seems according to Augustine and Boston those are pretty heavy hitters those guys say the scripture teach that you can war against sin that you can put it down, that you can stop that pattern of being unloving we need to continue to war against an unloving spirit number three love is an incredibly potent powerful motivator for obedience it's even stronger than fear particularly fear of punishment because of the satisfaction of God's wrath being applied to Christ the love that he's shown to us the love that we in turn respond to him with should cause us to potently seek obedience in our own lives fourth there's something that kind of led through in this section it's under appreciated usually in the discussion of 1

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Corinthians 13 it seems to be that we need to contemplate and long for heaven more we should long to be glorified to think about our future in the eternal state of glorification of Christ connected to that we must not forget our status in the third estate of man we can not sin we're able to not sin as the redeemed in Christ sin doesn't have that former power it had over us finally we need to take and apply this self -sacrificing royal law of love that Christ has taught us and we need to bring it to every sphere of our lives we like to compartmentalize our religion our family our spouses, our children extended family our church family our business contacts our vocation, our work the public square all of every area that we are involved in we need to bring the love of Christ with us and live and act as those who have been redeemed finally let us be characterized by the love that only

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God could give mediated through sacrificial death of Christ empowered by his

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Holy Spirit powerful words and thoughts today in the love chapter may we be instructed by it and live in a manner more consistent of this ideal may the

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Lord be pleased to do that with us let's pray together Lord Jesus we corporately confess our failure to love as we ought

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Lord we've esteemed other things, we've prized them more highly than than love oh

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Lord we know this was part of your warning to the seven churches in Revelation Lord we know that we are prone to wander, we know that we are easily set off course, we pray in the power of your spirit that we would radically conform to this principle of love for one another that's rooted and grounded in a love that you have for us that fills us and overflows in our relationships both with our spouses our children our family, church and even to the ends of the world,

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Lord I pray that you would in your spirit convict us and convince us of our error our failures to love

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Lord I pray that this would be a means of reconciliation between people who are have relationships that are strained or if there are phone calls that we need to make if there are people that we need to go visit in order to be reconciled

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I pray that you would bring that to mind give us the courage to do that and Lord we are a small church few in number don't have resources that others do but Lord we could be, if you were pleased to do it, we could be the most loving church and I pray that you would grant that to us in Jesus name