Mature Christians Love (Part 2)

Thanks for tuning in to No Compromise Radio with pastor and author, Dr. Mike Avendroff. Today on No Compromise Radio, we'll be hearing Pastor Mike open the Word of God in a recent message he preached at Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Massachusetts.

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

God's Love as the Basis for Christian Love

God, you've been extraordinarily kind. You've been so merciful. You've got love, no great love, and it's going to be broadcast throughout the ages. Why did God do this? Many reasons. He wanted to, it was in his eternal decree, but also because he wanted to show for ages that he can love the unlovable.

No wonder Paul says in 1 Corinthians, love never falls. Love never fails because the center of heaven is going to be Jesus the God-man with a body that has pierces through hands, feet, and side, and you will look and you will say the center of heaven is God, the loving God, who's incarnate and all the fullness of the deity dwells in bodily form, and that body has spears, pierces through it, and nail pierces as well.

No wonder heaven shouts with, worthy is the lamb who was, what, slain, Revelation 5, to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing. Sometimes you ought to just read Revelation out loud to yourself.

It was meant to be read out loud. Read it to yourself, and you just hear this language and you think, no wonder, and I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under earth and in the sea and all that was in them saying to him who sits on the throne and to the lamb, be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever, and the four living creatures said what?

Amen. And we're running around here going, I speak in tongues and you don't. I have the gift of teaching and you don't. I have the gift of giving and you don't. The first one applied to Corinth. The other two could be applied to our church.

First John 3 .16, this is how we know what love is. Jesus Christ laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for our brothers. And I'm telling you, that never falls. That never fails.

That goes on and on and on because Jesus is the center of heaven. God is love by nature, and the reason why he saved us was nothing short of his love. Paul says, love each other. Look at the cross. I began to think about love this week, and I thought, you know, basically God had to invent a new word for us to understand love because we didn't get love before, agape love.

And to think, okay, I've got a spouse that I'm not too loving with. I need to be more loving. What do I do? I've got a kid that I need to love more. I've got somebody in the church I need to love more.

How do I go about doing this? The best thing you can do is focus on the cross because God's love for you demonstrated at Calvary is, get this word, uninfluenced. Well, once my wife starts becoming a little nicer to me, then I'll be nice back to her.

Now, think about that salvation-wise. All right, we'll take a step towards God, then maybe he'll take a step towards us. No, he's trying to say, Paul is trying to say, God's love is uninfluenced. He sees in you nothing but sin and loves you anyway.

So when you look at someone else and you say, I'm to do the second greatest commandment towards them, love them, then it doesn't say, if they do this, then I do that. It says, I'm just going to love them no matter what because God loved me when I was a sinner.

I'm supposed to love sinful people. God didn't pick you because you were handsome, John Calvin said. Deuteronomy 7, same reason he picked Israel, he picked us. God did not set his love on you nor choose you because you were more in number than any of the people, for you were fewest of all peoples, but because the Lord loved you and kept the oath which he swore to your forefathers.

God loved us even when we were dead in trespasses and sins. Even when we were dead in trespasses and sins. Even when we were dead in trespasses and sins. God's love is not a response but the cause. So Corinth, love other people.

So Bethlehem Bible Church, love your spouse, love other Christians. I mean, we grow up in this works-oriented thing. You do this for me, I do this for you. You respond this way to me, you're going to get that right back.

Well, that's not how we've been loved. While we were still helpless at the right time, Christ died for the ungodly. This is love, 1 John 4, 10. Not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

The Temporary Nature of Sign Gifts

Now let's go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 13. Paul says love never ends, ESV, it never fails, NAS, it never falls, the Greek. So focus on that and then he's going to show the things that don't last. And so the mature Christian or the one desiring maturity or wanting to stay mature says, yes, I need to focus on love and not sign gifts.

Furthermore, not any gift at all. Verse 8 of 1 Corinthians 13, love never ends. As for prophecies, and he gives a little triad here, a little triplet. Prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, that's what Corinth is really into, remember chapter 12.

They will cease. As for knowledge, it will pass away. I am firmly convinced that car manufacturers build in obsolescence. Can I get a witness? It's built in obsolescence. These gifts have a built in obsolescence.

It doesn't mean they're bad, it doesn't mean they're wrong, it doesn't mean there's anything wrong with the gifts. They just don't merge onto the highway. They're just a stop sign and God says I'm using you for a purpose and then when the purpose is done, it's over.

So why try to run over here and cuddle up to things that don't last? Do I like the gift of tongues in the Bible? Yes, gift of prophecy, yes, gift of knowledge, yes, but they were temporary. Certainly, they're not going on in heaven.

And I would say, this is another sermon, obviously they're not going on today, not the biblical gifts. And so he says they just pass away. Take a look. First one, if there's prophecies, they'll be set aside.

Just rendered inoperative. Yes, Acts chapter 2 and Joel chapter 2, there'll be prophecies in the end days, but they're gonna stop one way or the other. They've either stopped now or they're gonna stop then.

You don't need prophecy in heaven. Then he says, secondly, and he puts it second in order with a different word for cease or to stop, to draw emphasis to it. If there are tongues, they shall cease. And he reasons the same way.

When it comes to tongues, they don't last forever. I think the canon's been closed. We don't need sign gifts to point to anything anymore because we are there. You don't need the sign Sacramento, 348 miles ahead when you arrive at Sacramento.

But certainly, at least, even if you're a charismatic, you'll agree with me, there's no speaking in tongues in heaven. Matter of fact, anyone that says, well, speaking in tongues is an angelic language, sometimes people will say that, angel language.

It can't be an angel language, because guess what? Will angels have language in heaven? There'll be angelic language in heaven. It doesn't cease. The gift that God gives to people in the New Testament that says you don't know how to speak Persian, but now you're speaking Persian to point to the message and the messenger, we don't need that anymore.

We're in heaven, where everyone speaks Nebraskan. Don't need that. If there's knowledge, it will be set aside. Now, wait a second. If it's just knowledge will be set aside, when you're in heaven, you don't know if knowledge will be set aside, because you won't have any knowledge.

It's set aside. He's not talking about knowledge is set aside. He's talking about the gift of knowledge. The word of wisdom, 1 Corinthians chapter 12, he talks about earlier. The sign gifts have their place, and they will pass away, but love remains.

Charismatic, cessationist, both agree that Paul is saying that we ought to love one another. If you're a charismatic or you're a cessationist, sign gifts have ceased today. Both agree we are to love one another.

That's the thesis. And he gives the ground for this thesis in verses nine and ten. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. What do you mean we know in part? Do we know everything that there is to know in the world?

Well, go to a laboratory and you'll find out they're always learning new things. There's more to be found out in life and more to be found between earth, finite, heaven, infinite knowledge. We prophesy in part, still more to know in heaven.

Still some prophecy to come about in the end days in Acts 2 and Joel 2. But when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. There's partial things, but when the perfect comes, those partial things pass away.

All right, seminary students love this verse because they get to argue, what is the perfect? If we just find out what the perfect is, then we'll know what's going on. Well, if we dive into what these things are, we could get so consumed with what option this is, what is the perfect, that we forget that the big picture is, in the middle of your spiritual gifts that you use, you're to love other people.

But I will tell you what the three main views are for the perfect, because if you read a book, it'll talk about it. If you read a commentary, it's probably even in your study Bible. When the perfect comes, these others go away.

Maybe if we knew what the perfect was, then we would say today, our tongues for today or not, maybe that would help us. Option one, many good scholars believe it, that the perfect is the canon getting put together.

There are now 66 books of the Bible, and once we get the 66 books of the Bible, prophecy and tongues and everything else, those gifts we don't need, because they were to point to God's word and the messenger of God's word.

And again, we're already in Sacramento, so who needs that? The complete word of God, no more revelation given. God closes the canon with the writings of the Apostle John, nothing else is needed. And this is popular with cessationists because cessationists, root word cease, try to tell charismatics or continuationists, root word continue, spiritual gifts of signed gifts.

Look it, they've stopped. But I don't think it's a completed canon. Listen to me, I think that the canon is complete and we no longer need those gifts, but it doesn't have anything to do with this verse.

Option two, when the perfect comes. What's a synonym for perfect that you'll see in the New Testament? Most of the times when you see the word perfect, it's translated in a different way, and it would be translated in what way?

Mature. So Paul says, when the mature church comes along, we don't need these signed gifts because the signed gifts were all pointing to something else. They're pointing to a time later on. It's pointing to a time, pointing to a person and a preacher, and we've already got the mature church.

And so when the maturity arrives, we don't need signed gifts any longer. Now for a second, I just want to make sure that you understand. Maybe you're grasping it, maybe I'm not explaining it well. Here's the scoop, looking at it another way.

Tongues is going to end someday. Word of knowledge is going to end someday. Prophecy is going to end someday. When's it going to end? And Paul is saying, he's not even trying to pick a time necessarily.

He's saying, it is going to end. And when is it going to end? Option three, the eternal state. That's what I think he's talking about. When the perfect comes, when you're in heaven, there's no need. Is there a need for speaking in tongues in heaven?

Is there a need for prophecy in heaven? Is there a need for the gift of knowledge? I have a word from God? No. Now you say, yeah, but if you take that view, that means somehow maybe people speak in tongues today.

Well, not necessarily. Paul is saying simply, when the perfect comes, the eternal state, the partial's done away with. That's all he's saying. So don't focus on things that are temporal. Now this will be a little easier to understand if we keep going.

Embracing Maturity Instead of Childishness

So let me give you exhortation number two. The first one was focus on love because it lasts. Number two, embrace growing up, found in verse 11. I'm much nicer than Paul today. I say my point is embrace growing up.

And Paul would say, don't be immature or grow up, is how he would say it. When I was a child, I spoke like a child. I thought like a child, verse 13. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up.

Same word for ceased, prophecy ceased. Same word for knowledge ceased. And when I got older, I ceased doing childish things. I said in the first service, so I better say it here too. When you have little kids, they like to have little security objects.

Like pacifiers. What do you call them? Binkies. That's what we call them. You can call them whatever you want. It's nice if it ends with a Y or something, i .e. And kids like security blankets too. What do you call a kid's security blanket?

Ba-ba's, ha-ha's, I don't know what you call it. My sister called it a ha-ha. She had a blanket and she bore her thumb through the blanket in a little hole there so then she could suck her thumb and then the blanket couldn't go anywhere.

And she knew as long as that thumb was in her mouth, she had her ha-ha with her. I don't know what they call them. What do they call pacifiers in New England? What? Binkies, okay. What do they call them in India?

Twinkies. Note to self, don't ask the congregation questions. There's a time that every parent, and by the way, just in general, parents wait too long to do this. Parents need to just have a little talk, mom and dad, binky, twinky, ha-ha, na-na, ba-ba's, bye-bye.

We need to get rid of this stuff. It's time, they don't need this anymore. And so the only time it's allowed for a Christian parent to lie is during this time, ba-ba, ha-ha. And what they don't know, it's already up in the attic and it's going to be put in your little cedar chest so we can give to your husband, he can laugh at you that there's a hole in your blanket.

Except he'd already gone through four when he was a kid. There's a time to just stop that. It's got to go bye-bye because it's just infantile things. There's just a time to grow up. And by the way, our culture, big time, and it probably spills into our church, this is the culture that won't grow up.

Friends, at our house, I hope it's the same with you. There are things, if you're a kid, you don't get at our house. Because I'm trying to teach you a lesson. Here's a lesson. When dad's in charge, dad's in charge and you do what I say.

So if you don't want to do what I say, why don't you grow up and go get your own place and you're the new king in your castle? But here's what we do in America. I hope you don't do it. Oh, little buddy, you get everything you want in this entire life on this earth.

And so the kid goes, you know, why do I need to move out? I'm in charge here. I'm the king of dad. As long as dad does what I say, everything's good. Sorry, 18-year-old son, you pay rent in my house.

Dad, I don't want to pay rent. Well, then move out. It's time to put the binky away, buddy. But seriously, we do live in an age of people aren't going to... they don't want to grow up. We're not going to grow up.

There's something in human nature where we just think, you know what, this is safe and it's secure. And Paul said tongues, knowledge, prophecy. I could say the gift of teaching. I could say anything I wanted in terms of spiritual gifts.

There's something that's beyond that. And if you have the gift of teaching, you ought to be loving. If you have the gift of giving, you ought to be loving. 1 Corinthians says if you've got these signed gifts that are spectacular, you ought to love people.

He says, I ceased my childish ways. I gave them up. There's nothing wrong with growing up. It's a good thing. Paul says, I'm not going to be ruled by childish attitudes anymore. Now, is there something to be said for early on in the church, baby talk was tongues, baby talk was partial prophecy, baby talk was knowledge.

And as the canon got completed, and now we're 1 ,800 years past the canon, there's a maturity here. Well, the answer is certainly yes. But the point being is having gifts is no sign of maturity. Having love is, and they were certainly an immature church.

Seeing the Future Face to Face

And finally, number three, and we need to end, how do we think about being loving in a church with spiritual gifts that abound? One, focus on love because it lasts. Number two, embrace growing up. Number three, get ready for something really good.

Get ready for something really good. All right, here's what Paul's going to do. All this deny ourselves, talk now and grow up, talk now. Once you get over here, it's going to be great. Once you do grow up, once you do get in the eternal state, once you are there, you think, you know what, that was worth it.

Let's see what he says. For now we see in a mirror dimly, dimly means with enigma, but then face to face, for I know in part now, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. Okay, here's what Paul's saying.

Church, focus on love. Don't get caught up in things that aren't going to last into eternity. Tongues don't last in eternity. Prophecy doesn't last in eternity. Knowledge gifts don't last in eternity.

Focus on what does. And by the way, when you get there, it's going to be great. Now if you were in Corinth back there 2 ,000 years ago, I was just there a couple of years ago and you try to find a mirror, they're not like our mirrors today.

Our mirrors today is you can get one of those vanity mirrors and it's got lights all around it and then you flip it over, it's got a big 10X on the bottom there. You know those mirrors, ladies? I hate those mirrors.

Makes me see myself as I really am. But back in those days, it was just brass or anything that was metal and they polish it really smoothly and then you could kind of see yourself, but it wasn't too good of a picture.

Furthermore, when you look at a mirror, it's not really you in one sense. It's a reflection of you and it doesn't, you know, right eye goes to this side and it doesn't flip it around and it's just not exactly me.

So there's a kind of a dim reflection, even if you use a good mirror today. But they had these bad mirrors and he's saying, listen, when we look at things now in our life, whether it's a spiritual gifts or anything else, it's just dim.

But when you get to heaven face to face, it's like a GI Joe guy, an army guy in World War II and he brings a picture of his wife and kids with him to the front line and he looks at it every day. Yeah, and you can, that's the picture of my wife, that's a picture of my daughter and you know what they look like.

But when that guy gets home and he sees his wife and children there waiting for him and he's alive, he doesn't care about the picture. I won't throw the picture away, but in his mind he sees them and he says, they are the reality.

And so now everything we do, even though the scriptures are pure and clean and right by comparison, the scriptures now and all that we do with all our spiritual gifts, it's just like a dim mirror compared to seeing God only like Moses could, face to face.

Why glom on to this dirty mirror now that's dark when one day you're going to focus on God face to face. Talk about a great day, look at what he says, but then face to face and actually not just like Moses, but better than Moses because Moses would have been obliterated by the nuclear holiness of God's person if he wasn't put in a cleft of the rock, but now face to face looking at God in the eye in Jude 24 and 25 so we can stand in his presence with what?

Blameless with great joy. Nothing indirect, nothing kind of not really working right with a mirror, face to face. But then, so there's a delayed gratification, there's a payoff at the end, but then face to face.

That's just Numbers 12 language, if you'd like to read that sometime. I've told you the story many times, I won't get into an elaborate story, my mother's dying of cancer, I'm in the room, she finally dies, she has that last breath, and you're waiting for one more breath, but that's the last one, everybody says their goodbyes, the nurse comes to me and says, you can stay in the room as long as you'd like to stay, I'm home alone, all my kids and my wife are here, so I sit in that room, and the long story short is I was, again, just thinking about my mom and life, and she taught the Bible, verse by verse at Omaha Bible Church, and she taught through the Gospel of John one year, and so she would call me up and say, Mike, I'm teaching tomorrow, and I've read this commentary and that commentary and the other commentary, this is what I think the passage means and says, am I right?

And I would say, good job mom, you're right, what are the kind of moms, you know, are reading Homer Kent's commentary, you're just like, this is the best, both saved out of Lutheranism and Sacramentalism, but once in a while I'd say, mom, it's not quite right, let me tell you what the right view is, and because of my education, my theological education, and the grace of God in my life via that, I knew more than my mom did, I'm not saying I was a better Christian, I'm not saying I was more loving, but I just knew more than my mom did, so she'd call and ask, is this the right thing to teach, yes it is, good to go, and I'm sitting there looking at my dead mom's body, knowing, absent from the body, present with the Lord, my mother was looking at the scriptures and all of life in a mirror dimly, and now she's seeing God face to face, and she's one thousand times the theologian I am now.

So why glom on to all these kind of gifts, especially Corinth, these signed gifts of tongues and prophecy, and look at me, they're all to point to something else, and by the way, they're not just to point to the canon, and to the messenger, and to the message, they're to point to an idea where in the future, we see everything face to face.

Only an infant would take a sandbox in Nebraska over the beach to Santa Cruz, frankly, there are some doctrines in the Bible that blow my mind, and I love to study them, I love to study sovereign grace, distinguishing grace, and election, I love to study imputation, I love to study federal headship, I love to study those things, it blows my mind that God would love me enough and choose me, but how about heaven, where I'm not going to forget any of the good doctrine I've been taught, all the bad doctrine I've been taught will be jettisoned, and I'll have the incarnate one before me, and he's the teacher, and he's the master, forever learning, forever teaching, forever showing me how much he loves me by who he is, and then by what he says.

Faith, Hope, and Love Abide

So Paul says in verse 13, to wrap things up, we've got to close, so now, faith, hope, and love abide, I think he just added faith and hope in because he's got the triplet of prophecy, knowledge, and tongue, so he adds two more, some think faith and hope abide all the way into the eternal state, I don't think so, I think you'll see him face to face, I don't think there's hope needed in heaven, but Paul just uses the language here of completion, faith, hope, and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love, why, because it doesn't fall, it doesn't fail, it never, ever ends.

So what's the point, I don't have time to do it, but I came up with a list of all these verses in the Bible that then say to love one another, I'll read two, a new commandment I give to you that you love one another, just as I have loved you, you are to love one another, by this all people will know that you are my disciples if you love one another, why, because the greatest of these is love.

No Compromise Radio with Pastor Mike Ebendroth is a production of Bethlehem Bible Church in West Boylston, Bethlehem Bible Church is a Bible teaching church firmly committed to unleashing the life transforming power of God's Word through verse by verse exposition of the sacred text.

Please come and join us. Our service times are Sunday morning at 8 .30 and 11am and Sunday evenings at 6pm. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbchurch .org 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.