Flair Jeans And Tongues - [1 Corinthians 13:8ff]

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I'd like to start with a question, and here's my question. What does a mature Christian look like? If you had to give marks of a mature
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Christian, they would be... Now, some of you are brand new Christians, and so we don't expect maturity in you, but certainly if you're growing in grace, you should be maturing.
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If you've been around for a long time, you should be mature. But what does maturity look like?
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There was someone who asked the question to college students, a professor recently, what does a mature Christian look like?
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And here's what the college student said. It's not for us to judge. One can never arrive at the state of maturity.
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Now, we're not supposed to judge, although that's a verse taken out of context, not applied to that situation.
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And we never will arrive completely until glory, that's true as well. But can we be mature now?
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Wasn't that the problem of Corinth? Corinth understood who
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Christ was. They had a great teacher, Paul. They should have been mature, and they were infantile.
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They were babies. And so Paul writes 1 Corinthians for lots of reasons, but one reason he writes to them is so that they might grow up.
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And we're going to see today in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 that one of the marks of maturity is this, exactly what
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Scott Brown prayed earlier, that we would focus less on temporal things that are passing and fading and more on eternal things that will last forever.
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One of the ways you can check your own self, am I growing? Remember when you were a kid, you had the growing bean? Actually, we had that thing on the wall at the back of my parents' bedroom,
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I think, or the kids' bedroom, and there was actually this bean like Jack and the Beanstalk. And I remember just measuring myself and having mom say,
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Yep, I think you're growing. I kept praying that I'd be 6 '6", and I could be a point guard like Jerry West or something like that.
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I don't know. You don't know Jerry West. Okay, Bob Cousy, but really tall and better. I'm just kidding.
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So here's what's going to happen. In the next three months, we'll probably wrap up 1 Corinthians. And so we're diving right back into where we were before I went to California.
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So I'm just going to catch you up quickly on 1 Corinthians. So if you open it up for the first time in chapter 13, you'd know where you were and you know what
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Paul's been trying to do. So Paul writes back to Corinth. He's been there for 18 months ministering to them, and they've got problems and they've got questions.
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Sounds like kind of lots of churches, right? We've got problems and we've got questions. So he addresses four of the problems early on in chapters 1 through 6.
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And some of those problems dealt with unity. There wasn't unity in the church. So he addresses that problem.
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There wasn't any church discipline going on. Incestual relationships happening and there was no discipline, chapter 5.
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Another problem was people were suing each other in the church. Saints suing saints. And so Paul lays some wood to them and says, you can't do that early in chapter 6.
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Christians don't sue other Christians. And then he says at the end of chapter 6, the last problem is there's immorality, sexual immorality going on in the church and it has to stop.
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Then we move to chapter 7 through the end of the book, 7 through 16, those chapters. And there are a bunch of questions that Corinth asks.
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He gives the answer. Now, we don't really know all the questions. We just know his answers. So we have to extrapolate backwards and say, we think we know what they were asking.
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But generally, this is what they were asking. Chapter 7, is celibacy legitimate?
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Chapter 8, 9, and 10, what do we do about eating meat that's been offered in idols and ceremonies?
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And what do we do there? What's our Christian liberty, in other words? The third question was, should women have their head covered in public?
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The fourth question was, what do we really do at love feasts, the
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Lord's Supper? How do we act? And then we come to this question where we are right now. What do we do about spiritual gifts?
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Chapter 12, 13, and 14. So the main thing I want to say before we plunge into 13 is this.
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Chapter 13 is not isolated. Chapter 13 is not just dropped into the middle of this without any context.
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They're asking about spiritual gifts, chapter 12, chapter 14. And so Paul puts in the very middle, kind of in the middle of the sandwich, if you will, you have to be loving.
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And so in the middle of using your spiritual gifts, Paul says you must exercise love.
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Now, let's just go to chapter 13, verse 1, and see how he talks. And I'll read the first several verses, and we're going to get to chapter 13, 8 to 13, in just a minute.
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Look at how he uses these hypothetical illustrations in chapter 13, verse 1.
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You'll see the three ifs there. He's trying to drive home that it's necessary to love people.
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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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And if I have powers, prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith as to remove mountains but have not love,
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I am nothing. If I give away all I have and if I deliver up my body to be burned but have not love,
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I gain nothing. Is it okay to read these verses at a Christian wedding ceremony?
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It's okay to read pretty much any verse at any time, any place, isn't it? I like Bible verses, but the context here isn't marital love.
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The context isn't even the love shown to us at Calvary, although these concepts spill into both.
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The issue here is if Corinth would do these things, all their problems of disunity, immorality, suing each other, everything else would be solved.
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If you would love one another, in other words, chapters 1 through 4, you'd be unified. If you'd love one another, you'd actually go to someone and confront them who's living in immorality.
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If you love someone, you're not going to sue them, are you? And so it's like he picks these things perfectly to apply to Corinth.
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And of course, it goes way beyond Corinth, even out to West Boylston 2 ,000 years later.
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Paul then gives 15 descriptions of what love looks like that would solve their problem.
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And you'll notice in these things, they're other -oriented. These are action words.
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It does very much reflect the love of God. And let me read to you verses 4 through 7.
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You know the verses well, but I want to make sure we get this because they're tied into the next section. Love is patient and kind.
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How would that work with the lack of unity in chapters 1 to 4? That would have solved that.
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Love does not envy. How would that work out with the lawsuit deal? Or boast.
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How would that work out with, I've got tongues and you don't? It's not arrogant.
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Remember the Corinthians? They were what? Puffed up. Who knows a Greek word for being puffed up? Somebody say it out loud.
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Fusio. You guys, I'm telling you, this is great. Good job teaching them this summer,
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Steve. They're in good hands. Fusio, puffed up. When you blow up a balloon, that's what it sounds like.
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Fusio. Just big headed. It's not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way.
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It, love, is not irritable or resentful. Verse 6, it does not rejoice at wrongdoing.
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Chapter 5, the incest thing. You know, God's grace is exceeding all our sin.
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But rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things.
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Love believes all things. Hopes all things. Endures all things.
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Which brings us to our passage today. A continuation about love. Check out chapter 13, verse 8, first word.
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And chapter 13, verse 13, last word. And you'll see love again, bracketed.
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He's still talking about love. Sometimes these verses don't get read at weddings. But we're still talking about Christian love.
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So let me read these words and then we'll see some truths coming right from them. Now remember, context of spiritual gifts.
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Context of trying to talk to these folks about issues in their local church.
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And he says, love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away. As for tongues, they will cease.
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As for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part.
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But when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child.
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I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
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For now we see in a mirror dimly, then, but then, face to face.
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Now I know in part. Then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
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So now, faith, hope, and love abide. These three, but the greatest of these is love.
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Before I give you the outline, let me just remind you that the key to all of this, I'll just tell you ahead of time, it's that love lasts.
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So focus on the thing that lasts. Love is permanent. Other things go away, like sign gifts, like all spiritual gifts, but love lasts.
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So if you were immature, you would focus on something that doesn't last. And if you were mature, you would focus on something that does last.
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Paul is trying to tell us that the thesis statement is, love is permanent.
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Gifts for the present, love is permanent. This has nothing to do with some general hymn to love.
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This chapter 13 is a general ode to love. No, this is a chapter that says, love lasts,
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Corinth. Don't focus on all these other spiritual gifts so much that you forget about what's going to be eternal.
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That's going to be the issue. Solomon said, in Song of Solomon, chapter 5,
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Many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it out.
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Let me give you three charges or exhortation that would be good for BBC as well. Good advice when it comes to this issue.
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Number one, I just said it earlier, but that's all right. We want to just keep driving this in. Number one, focus on love because it lasts.
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This is going to be good for us because whether it's the gift of serving, the gift of administration, you have the gift of giving, you have the gift of teaching.
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Even though we're not dealing with these sign gifts at the moment here at Bethlehem Bible Church, we're still dealing with spiritual gifts, and so focus on what lasts.
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And that's love. And take a look at the thesis statement, verse 8. This is really the issue. This verse defines the rest of the paragraph.
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Love never ends. Prophecies pass away, tongue cease, knowledge passes away.
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Love never ends. That's ESV. NAS really isn't much better. Who has
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NAS? Love never what? Fails. Literally the word is love never falls.
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Love never falls. Now let's turn our Bibles to Acts chapter 20 for a second.
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Let me show you an illustration of the exact same word. Paul is trying to drive at love is endless, love is eternal, love is always in, love is never out of fashion, love never collapses, love is never destroyed, never falls apart.
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It's eternal. After all, God is love, so can love ever cease?
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No. And so the exact same word is used in Acts 20. Now earlier in 1
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Corinthians chapter 10, Paul said, Take heed lest you what? Fall. Same word.
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But here's also the same word, and I kind of like this, Acts chapter 20, just because I like everything about Acts chapter 20.
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Verse 7. The first day of the week when they were gathered together to break bread, Paul talked with them, intending to depart on the next day, and he prolonged his speech until midnight.
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You know why I like this chapter. Until midnight. There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered, and a young man named
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Eutychus, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep as Paul talked still longer.
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Is it biblical to preach long sermons? And being overcome by sleep, he fell down from the third story.
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That's the word. Love never falls like Eutychus falls. Love never falls out of the window and dies.
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That's the point. Let's just read the rest, just for fun. And he's taken up dead.
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Paul went down and bent over him, and taking him in his arms, said, Do not be alarmed, for his life is in him.
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And when Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while until daybreak, and so departed.
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They took the youth away alive, and then in this classic understatement, and we're not a little comforted.
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And we're not a little comforted. All right, back to 1 Corinthians 13.
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Love doesn't fall out the window dead. Love continues through this life into eternity.
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Will there be love in heaven? Will there be someone in heaven who's desiring the best in any object?
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The answer is yes. Agape love will still be in heaven. Oh, eros love's not going to be there, but certainly agape love will be there.
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And Paul says love is eternal. It never falls to the ground.
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It never collapses. It's permanent. It never suffers ruin.
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So since that's the case, if you're going to have to invest in something, should you invest your money in the stock market in something that you think is going to last and pay dividends, not just now, but later?
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And the answer is, well, that's obvious, but the Corinthians weren't doing it. One man said, love is not something we practice here and now, and when the
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Lord comes, or when we enter into His presence, passes away, love belongs to the ages, not simply to this age, but to all the ages.
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And it totally makes sense, doesn't it? God is love, 1 John 4, then love must last.
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What's the motivation for our salvation? It's the love of God. That must last, because when you see
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Jesus in His body, in heaven, you are going to be thinking about those marks that are on His body that show what
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He has done by saving us in love. Let's turn to Ephesians 2 for a moment as we put together this idea that love never lasts.
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Love never lasts. Well, my stupid kind of love does, I guess, obviously.
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That love never falls, love lasts. There we go. You know, the great thing about our minds as we listen to someone,
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I can even say the wrong thing and mess up verbally, but your mind is just translated. You have that little translator where you just go, okay,
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I can figure that out. I know what he means. All right, Ephesians 2. Here's where I'm going. I'm just going to give you a peek of where I'm going to go, and then
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I'll have to develop it in a second. I want you to see that love is the motivating factor for your salvation, and just how great love is, so that you're now going to see in your mind's eye that heaven is going to be
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Jesus Christ's love incarnate for what He's done at Calvary. So let's just take a look at this,
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Ephesians 2, 1 and following. You'll see right where I'm going in a second. And you were dead in the trespasses and sins.
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Paul is talking about the state of every person in the world except for Jesus. You were born dead, physically alive, spiritually dead.
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And then he gives comprehensive terms. In trespasses and sins. In trespasses, things that I did on purpose.
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Sins, things that I missed the mark. Sins of omission or commission, in other words. We are dead in trespasses and sins.
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It's like when I flew my dog out to California, which was a very interesting story altogether.
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I got to San Jose. She flew in a different carrier. And then I get this phone call in San Jose. Sorry, your dog missed her connection in Houston.
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She won't get there until tomorrow. I thought, I thought I told that dog how to make connections. Get off the plane.
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You find your gate. Make sure it says San Jose. Then you use the restroom. Then you buy your
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Starbucks. And I thought, my dog missed her flight. Just like her. But as I would take her along in Northern California, these awesome redwoods would be there.
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Up to the sky. These redwoods. And you know what? My dog had no appreciation for the beauty of redwoods.
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I took her down to the ocean. And we'll walk along the ocean. And see Jetty right out there about 30 yards out there is where that great white pushed that kayak up, that 16 -foot kayak and started eating the kayak.
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And just the beauty of God and the kelp bed and the shark. And my dog had no appreciation for sharks or for the ocean or for anything else.
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And here, in the spiritual sense, God made us to worship Him. He's the Creator. We're the creation.
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And we've been made to worship Him. To thank Him. And to give Him honor. And to adore Him. And to sing to Him.
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And because we've been born in our dead trespasses and sins, we have no appreciation for the beauty of God.
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None. This is the state of everyone. The word dead is nekros.
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Remember in the prodigal son, my son was dead. No desire for the fellowship of God.
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No desire to hear the Spirit's voice. Rebels. And talk about slavery, verse 2,
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Ephesians 2, in which you once walked. The course of our life. This is just what we did.
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Following the course of the world. The world's peer pressure was dominating us.
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Free? No, we're not free. Before we were saved, we were following the course of the world.
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And more than that, to make the noose even tighter, to make sure you don't understand, there was nothing free about us except our freedom to sin.
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Following the prince of the power of the air. As one man said, we not only followed what the world said, we also danced the devil's tune.
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You just imagine the devil playing a little piccolo or something and we just hopping around. And he says, jump, it's how high?
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The spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. And we weren't running to God before we were saved.
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We were running away from God. We can't get away from God fast enough. And we all had a personal relationship with Jesus Christ before we were saved.
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And that relationship was judge, enemy, rebel, rebellion.
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We had a personal relationship and God took our hostilities very personally. How bad can this be?
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Could it get any worse? Just like of the other men Jesus could have said of us before we were saved, you are of your father, the devil.
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Verse 3, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh. Could things get any worse?
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This is an unsavable group. They certainly can't save themselves.
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Twelve -step groups aren't going to help this kind of depravity. This isn't an issue of I've got a sin problem.
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This is I'm the problem. Too often in America, it's like, well, you know, we've got to love the sinner and hate the sin.
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Okay. That's what we have to do. But I don't want you to ever think somehow that you and your sins are different.
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Well, I'm Mike, but I have my sins over here. No, I am the sinner. I am the problem.
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And God hates both the sin and the sinner. See Psalm 711. This is bad.
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Especially knowing that vengeance is mine. I will repay. How do we extract ourselves out of this?
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How do we get out of this? It's hopeless. Seemingly hopeless.
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The Lord is a consuming fire, a jealous God. Verse 3, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath like the rest of mankind.
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And for anybody that ever says the only hell there is is what's going on on this earth, has no idea about the holiness of God and what
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God says about hell later. Actually, if you think this is hell on earth, if you die and go to hell, you'll think what happened to you on earth was a veritable heaven,
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Edwards would say. That's just foolish talk. And so we have been created by God.
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Adam was created upright, and God says, I demand your allegiance. I demand your worship.
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I demand your adoration. And we say, no, we'll do what Satan wants.
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We'll do what we want. We are just like Sirhan Sirhan, except worse.
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When he said after he killed Robert Kennedy, they can gas me, but I'm famous.
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We're sunk. It's over. There's no hope.
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Can't extract ourselves out. Can't save ourselves. You mean to tell me a little bit of water sprinkled on your head as a kid is going to help you?
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You mean to tell me being good the rest of your life is going to help you? Having more good than bad is going to extricate yourself from this situation?
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Nothing can help us. No one can help us except the judge who is also the
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Savior. Verse 4. I'm so glad this next word is an and.
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And God whacked them eternally. I'm glad this next word isn't therefore.
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Therefore, because of what they've earned, God gave them judgment. But here Martin Lloyd -Jones says, if you haven't listened to the sermon
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But God by Lloyd -Jones, Ephesians 2, 4, you ought to do it. It's free now on the Martin Lloyd -Jones
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Recording Trust. But God. That is great.
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That is great news. But God. Being rich in mercy.
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Yes, He's the judge. Yes, He hates sin. But He has other attributes too. Because of the great love with which
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He loved us. Jonathan Gershner said, Love?
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Impossible. Mercy? Maybe. Perhaps He would spare us.
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But what is there to love? Hate? Yes, there is plenty of hate. Maybe He once loved us.
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Or maybe He could have loved what we once were. But we're beyond love. Yet He loves.
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Loving where there is nothing to love. Verse 5.
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Just to make sure we are underlined in our mind to underscore this very fact. That God loves us even though we were sinful.
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Even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ. And then for the ages they sing,
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By grace you've been saved. If you don't think sins are bad, then you can't sing amazing grace.
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And He raised us up with Him and seated us with Him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus.
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Why did God do all this? Why did God take the sinners and save them? Many reasons.
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One, because He wanted to. Number two, it's the eternal decree. But here He's also doing it because He wants to show the world and the angels, and He wants to show even
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Himself within the Trinity that forever and ever in the divine publicity program, God is a loving
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God who saves sinners. You ever go to the beach and you see one of those biplanes come by and it's got a long cable and then it's got a promotion at the back of it,
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Buy Red Bull or something like that? I guess you don't get out much. Based on your pasty white appeal of complexion,
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I can see you don't get to the beach much. God did all this because it shows that He's a great
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God and then He promotes it to everyone. Verse 7, so that in the coming ages, age after age after eon after eon,
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He might show, He might demonstrate, He might display the immeasurable riches of His grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus.
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With the motive, that we just learned about in chapter 2, verse 4, of love. The only thing that did this was because God was motivated by Himself, for Himself, unto
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Himself to say, I love these unlovable people and I'll show you how great I am. By the depths of their sin,
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I'll still overcome it with the greatness of my mercy, grace, and love. And that's something to be promoted.
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This is an ongoing exhibition forever and ever and ever. Not just on this earth.
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Not just on Calvary. Not just back in Genesis chapter 3 and the early Gospel. But all the way throughout all eternity.
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Turn with me if you would to Revelation chapter 5 and let me show you the centerpiece of love incarnate.
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You're never going to forget about love. Love is always going to be existing in heaven and you'll see it and you'll experience it.
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So therefore Corinth or any other church, why get bogged down in all this other stuff? Something is more lasting.
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So focus on the permanent. Revelation chapter 5. Revelation chapter 5.
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Let's see. For sake of time, we better just jump down to v. 11. I was going to start at v. 6, but let's go down to v.
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11. Revelation 5. Here's my point. Love goes on through eternity. And if God is love and He's motivated by love to save sinners, that's going to be the centerpiece of heaven.
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Not going to be your dog in heaven. Certainly not going to be me in heaven.
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Not even going to be your mom in heaven. Those things that have souls and have been redeemed will all focus on this, on Him.
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Then I looked, v. 11, and I heard around the throne and living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands.
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Do yourself a favor sometime and just read the book of Revelation out loud. It was originally written to be read out loud and to be heard out loud.
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It's amazing as you listen to this, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, does love last?
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Does love go on through eternity? Will there be love in heaven? Worthy is the
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Lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and glory and honor and blessing.
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Steve and I went together for the gospel years ago and they recorded some of the songs and now
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Steve, with the enthusiasm of some car salesman or something, but with good motives, he is pushing this
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CD on people that's right out there for just a few bucks about men singing the glories of God with all kinds of hymns together for the gospel live.
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I put that thing in my car and I thought Steve's prone to exaggeration, unlike me. He does these kind of things.
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I put it in my car. I was having some worship experience with 8 ,000 guys singing
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Immortal Invisible, singing And Can It Be. I pulled up today listening to a song and I just thought, this is making me cry thinking about the greatness of God and how all these people from every tribe and kindred and tongue get together to say we're going to worship the
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God -man, the Jew Christ Jesus, the Savior, the Risen King. Now if that was good, and actually
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I got to be there in Louisville to listen to all that and hear all that. If that's good,
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I wonder what this is like. Verse 13, And I heard every creature in heaven and on earth and under the earth and in the sea and all that is in them saying, you just think about the
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Lamb and you think about His love eternal. To Him who sits on the throne and to the
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Lamb be blessing and honor and glory and might forever and ever.
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When you hear words like that, you can't help but do what the living creatures do. They said
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Amen, and the elders fell down and worshipped. Finally the real slain in the
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Spirit. Love never ends. Because when you're in heaven, you're going to see
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Jesus Christ in His body with those marks and you're always going to be thinking this is the
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God who, Revelation 1, loves us. Only time I think of the New Testament with the present tense, to the
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God who loves us. It's an amazing thing to think about the love of God.
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Did you know the love of God, a study on that will help you in about every area of your life?
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Think about it for just a second. Say, well, I'd like to be more loving at home to my spouse or to other people at church.
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Let me just remind you about the love of God. It is uninfluenced. Well, you know, my wife doesn't really treat me that well, so I don't really think that she deserves me to treat her very well, or vice versa, or my kids.
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We are in an earn it society. A work society. You earn my favor,
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I give you favor. But that has nothing to do with biblical love. When God saved you, the only reason
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He saved you is because He could get a lot of glory for that. It's like Deuteronomy 7.
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God did not set His love on you or choose you because you were more in number than any of the peoples. God saved you even when you were dead in your trespasses and sins.
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So when you think about the love of God, then you think, how am I supposed to love other people? The two great commandments are love God and love others.
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How do I love other people? Well, if God's love for me is uninfluenced even when I'm sinful, then
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I think I'll just love them even though they don't deserve it. The uninfluenced love of God.
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God's love, friends, is not a cause. Love is not a response.
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It's a cause. We didn't do anything. He is the mover. Let's go back to 1
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Corinthians 13. Did I already say that? Let's go back to 1 Corinthians 13. I had a whole sermon here on the love of God, but we need to keep going through 1
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Corinthians 13, focusing on the thing that lasts.
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Love never falls, so focus on love, Corinth, Bethlehem Bible Church.
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And he says in the rest of verse 8, as for prophecies, they pass away.
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We're talking about the gift of prophecies. As for tongues, the gift of tongues, they cease.
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As for knowledge, it will pass away. We're talking about these three sign gifts. We're talking about gifts in general, we could say, but here are these three sign gifts that he really was trying to correct the
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Corinthians' view of. He says they're going to pass away. Love transcends all spiritual gifts, including these sign gifts.
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Just like with cars, most likely, there is a built -in obsolescence. They're only to last for such a long time.
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It's good for the time period, and then they're over. There's nothing wrong with gifts of knowledge, tongues, and prophecy, but they weren't meant to last, yet love was.
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Take a look here, it says, if there are prophecies, they'll be set aside. Thus saith the
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Lord. The canon wasn't complete. Someone would say, Thus saith the Lord. That's good, but that's going to stop one day.
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Yes, there'll be prophecies in the end times, Acts 2 and Joel, but one day they're going to be gone.
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And it says they're going to stop. They're going to be rendered inoperative. They're not even on the merge lane that goes into the freeway to go along with something else.
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They're just stopped. There's a stop sign there. Eventually prophecies, they stop. Same thing with tongues.
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He uses a different word, but I think he's just trying to create a structure here, a literary structure, a chiastic structure.
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Their big deal was tongues, and he says, well, prophecies end, knowledge ends, and right in the middle, the focus is tongues, they shall cease.
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It's the same line of reasoning. Focus on tongues, they cease. And on knowledge, it will be set aside.
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You say, knowledge is going to be set aside. If knowledge is set aside, I won't even know it because I won't be able to know because there won't be any knowledge.
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Well, this is not knowledge in general. This is the gift of knowledge. It will be set aside. It's partial.
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I could say it to charismatics as easily as I could to non -charismatic. Focus on the thing that lasts, and it's not a spiritual gift, it's love.
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Verse 9 and 10, Paul gives a little ground for what he's just said.
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Thesis statements, verse 8, then he gives a ground for what he says in verses 9 and 10. For we know in part and prophesy in part.
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You don't even really have to think too much to figure out, yeah, that's true. Do we only know in part?
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I could take you to any laboratory in the universe and you would have to say along with those scientists, we only know in what?
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Part. Prophecy is even in part too because what we know about heaven and God, that's still not all complete.
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There's more to know. The canon's complete, but there's more to know. And then he says, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
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All right, if you're a seminary student, you're going to want me to talk for an hour about what the perfect is.
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If you're not a seminary student, and I'm not a seminary student anymore either, so we're just going to cut to the chase, but I will give you the three quick options.
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People see the word perfect. When the perfect comes, the partial pass away. Option one, the perfect is the completed canon of Scripture.
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When the canon gets put together and the last book is written, Revelation, then do you know what?
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There's no reason to prophesy anymore or speak in tongues anymore, have words of knowledge anymore because those things were to be signs to point to the authenticated word.
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We already have the authenticated word, so we don't need any sign pointers anymore. That's option one.
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It has some views. Cessationists really love it, people that think sign gifts have ceased, which
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I have one of those, but I don't take this view, the completed canon.
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Closely related to that is the mature church. Now, most of the time when you see this word perfect in the
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New Testament, it means mature. So when the mature church gets mature, they don't need these signs of gifts anymore because the sign says
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Sacramento 348 miles, but now the church is mature and we're already at Sacramento.
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I'm downtown Sacramento, so why do I need these gifts to point me there? Because the church has moved along, similar philosophy to the perfect with the canon idea, and so why do we need pointers, tongues, pointers, prophecy, pointers, knowledge gifts, word of knowledge gifts when the church is mature enough?
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They don't need that. That's another option. Although in Joel 2 and Acts 2, there is prophecy in the future, so I don't take that view.
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What's the final view? I'll have to tell you next week. Let's pray. No, just kidding. I can tell you're looking at me going, the whole heaven thing and love is eternal, that was all excellent.
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Now what about this? Paul says the perfect is going to come and everything else is going to be gone.
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So the perfect is either the canon, good scholars believe that, the mature church, good scholars believe that, but the best scholars believe the last view, the eternal state.
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When the eternal state comes, you're not going to need any of these. But in every case, canon, maturity or eternal state,
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Paul is going to say, so focus on love instead of running around with gifts. We could do it here at the church.
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Well, you know what? I've got the gift of teaching and you don't. Look at you versus me. No, I should be loving.
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I have the gift of giving. I give a lot and you don't. Well, then you should work on love. And so the best option,
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I think, is the eternal state where we see God face to face. We have full knowledge.
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We don't need prophecy. We don't need tongues. Everything is going to come to an end except for love.
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So number one, focus on love because it lasts. Number two, embrace growing up.
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Outline point number two, embrace growing up. This was a high school ministry.
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I'd say let's jettison the Peter Pan syndrome. Paul is basically going to say it in a tougher way and he's going to say grow up.
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Don't be immature. Found in verse 11. Immaturity focuses on the temporary.
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We've talked about that. And when I was a child, spoke like a child, thought like a child, a reason like a child.
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When I became a man, I gave up. Same root word where prophecy ceased.
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I ceased my childish ways. Same root word where it says the knowledge gift ceases or stops.
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I ceased my childish ways. Children preoccupy themselves with temporal and Paul says, why do
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I want to act like a child? I don't want to. So Corinth, don't you. Don't act like a child.
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You know, there's a time in a kid's life where you have to come along and say, you know what, their little binky that they have or their special blanket, their ba -ba, their ha -ha, their na -na.
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I don't know what you call it here. We've got some weird people from South Africa and India and all these other kind of ha -ha, na -na things.
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I don't know what's going on in your culture. But I do know your kids are just like ours. Depraved.
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No, just kidding. Whatever the culture is, you have to say to the kid eventually, you know what, you have that little conversation with your wife.
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Let's take away them. The kids all of a sudden go, you know, blanket, banky, bibo, you know, and they're asking for all these things, and you're like, you know, it's the only time you can lie to your kids, really.
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Or you could just say, you know what, it's time to grow up. You don't need your little blanky anymore.
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But what we did in our house is we saved them, put them up in the attic. My sister had her blanket, and she worked her finger, her thumb, through the end of the blanket so she could put her thumb in her mouth and then the blanket would be attached.
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And so the only way she could ever lose her blanket was getting rid of her thumb out of her mouth. Paul says to Corinth, and I'll say to you,
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I can say it to me too, put your blanket away. It's time to put your bankys away. I'm a great teacher.
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I'm a great giver. I have the gift of administration. I do all these other things. Okay, just put the banky away.
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That's the idea. Stop acting like a child. Give that up. We're supposed to be loving people.
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The people that run their mouths the most should be the most loving. And if you were the most loving, you wouldn't have the motor on your mouth.
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The way a kid thinks is immature. Paul says don't be immature.
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Give it up with finality. There's an age appropriateness to maturity.
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Now some think, and we can talk about this another time maybe, that contrary to what most people think, that in the first century we had something called apostolic fathers.
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Those had been taught by John and others. That really those weren't apostolic fathers because the church has been taught by the
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Spirit of God for the next 2 ,000 years. And if you want to see who the children are in church history, you go back to the second century.
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If you want to see who the fathers are in church history, you look at people in the last few centuries because the
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Spirit of God has been building on the foundation of the church for 2 ,000 years.
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So what Paul could be saying, he could say generally just grow up. Or he could say, why focus on these things that are childish that have to do with infancy of the church like tongues, like prophecy, like knowledge.
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But either way, at the end of the day, he says it's time to grow up and focus on love. So charismatics here, non -charismatics here, the focus is still the same.
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And then lastly, and we need to wrap up, brace yourself for something really good. How do we think through these issues?
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How do we love in light of our spiritual gifts? How do we use our spiritual gifts in light of love? One, focus on what lasts.
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Two, don't be immature. Three, brace yourself for something good. Verse 12,
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For now we see in a mirror dimly, or literally in Greek, with an enigma, but then face to face.
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Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
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In other words, Paul says focus on what's last. Focus on what's last. Make sure you grow up and focus on what lasts.
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And now let me just give you a little hint of how great it is. It's going to pay off.
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It's going to be great at the end. It's like the experiment. You walk in a room and you say to a kid, I'm going to leave a marshmallow here.
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I have to go run a little errand. And if I come back and you haven't eaten the marshmallow,
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I'll give you one more marshmallow. And if you eat the marshmallow, no more marshmallows. And inevitably there are those kids that just eat that first marshmallow and they don't care about delayed gratification.
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But others do wait. And Paul is saying there's a delayed gratification.
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Heaven's going to be worth it. This isn't heaven. So Paul says we see in a mirror dimly.
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Now think to yourself, 2 ,000 years ago, what did a mirror look like? It didn't have all these nice bulbs around it and flip it over and it's got a little like 10x below so you can see what you really look like.
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Some vanity mirror. No, they'd take some metal and they'd rub it really hard and it would be not quite right.
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First of all, it's indirect, a mirror would be even today. Second of all, it's opposite because my right eye here shows up there and it shows up on the wrong side.
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It doesn't flip it around and so it's dim. It's kind of not right.
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It's not perfect. And so Paul says the way we live our lives now is by looking at this mirror that's not been polished well.
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But soon we're going to see God face -to -face and no face -to -face. But then look at the text.
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We shall see face -to -face. That's what they longed for back in those days. Face -to -face communion.
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Not just Moses face -to -face, but we can see face -to -face.
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I'll never forget as long as I live, I'm in the room, my mom's about ready to die, and she'd always call me and say
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I'm teaching the Gospel of John verse -by -verse and I've got a problem with my theological, this theological problem in the text and what do you think?
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And here's what I think I'm going to teach the ladies. Is this right? I've read these three commentaries, but I want to know what you think and I would say,
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Mom, great job. You got it. Our mom, great job, but I think this would be the right interpretation.
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Okay. And so I wasn't ever better than my mom, but I had been to theological seminary and so my mom had this level of knowledge of the
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Word and I had this level of knowledge of the Word and then she died in that hospital room and everybody else left and I just kind of sat around for a while and I thought
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I'm just going to be quiet, shut the window and just sit and then it dawned on me, I've said many times before, that my mom didn't have to ask me any more theological questions because she was an ultra -scholar compared to me.
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Instead of me looking at the doctrines of sovereignty and election and federal representation and imputation,
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I'm like, I think I can kind of get that a little bit. All of a sudden, my mom face -to -face. So Paul says to Corinth, you know what?
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You're struggling like this, but don't forget there's a face -to -face day when you're going to see God and stand in His presence.
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That's what Jude 24 and 25 say. It's worth it.
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There's going to be this intimate knowledge, a direct knowledge, not a partial knowledge any longer.
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And Moses couldn't even really see His face -to -face. He could see face -to -face meaning intimate, more intimate than those down at the bottom of the mountain of Mount Sinai.
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But then there's the face -to -face scene. Paul says, you know what? It's going to be worth it. Hang in there.
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Complete knowledge soon. And then he says to wrap it up in verse 13,
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So now... He likes to use this little triad. Maybe he just added faith and hope because he'd used the triad of prophecy, knowledge, and tongues, and so he wants to have another triad.
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And you can argue if you have to have faith in heaven, I don't think you do. Is there hope in heaven? I don't think there is.
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So you're going to see God face -to -face. But he uses this triad. And he says, And love, abide. These three.
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But then the one that's great because it lasts on into heaven through the ages, but the greatest of these is love.
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Because love never falls. So what's the response? I don't have time to read it now, but I went through my entire
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New Testament and found out verse after verse that says something like this, A new commandment
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I give you, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you are also to love one another.
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Do you have the gift of teaching? Great. Do you have the gift of serving? Great. Do you have the gift of giving?
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Great. Do you have the gift of administration? Great. But none of those are going to last.
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So love. Let's pray. Father, I commend these dear people to You and to the
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Word of Grace. Transform them from the inside out. Husbands, wives, children, those at work, and now even in the body of Christ, would