Mature Christians Love (Part 1)

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.

Signs of Christian Maturity and the Setting of 1 Corinthians 13

Are you a mature Christian? Would you consider yourself a mature Christian? I guess maybe a better question would be, what would be the signs of a mature Christian? How do we know what a mature Christian would, what would it look like?

Well there's a college professor and he has a class designed for Christians and he asked that question to those people. What does maturity look like? And they said, well, we can't judge those things. They said, well, we'll never arrive at a state of maturity on this earth.

What is maturity? Now if you're a brand new Christian, you're not going to be mature, but if you are older in the Lord, you should see maturity in your life. And today we'll look at a passage in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 that talks about one of the defining marks of maturity.

That you'll begin to look at things not just on the temporal basis, but the eternal basis. And you'll focus not just on things that don't last, but focus on things that last. That is a sign of maturity.

Let's turn our Bibles to 1 Corinthians chapter 13 as we're back in this book. 1 Corinthians, 16 chapters, chock full, really it's like three times the size of Philippians. Full of all kinds of information and today we'll look at maturity in Christ.

And Paul is going to hammer this home that if you're mature and you want to mature, you'll look at things not just temporally, things that are fleeting by, you'll look at things that have eternal value.

Now to catch us back up to 1 Corinthians, since it's been several months since we've been in 1 Corinthians, maybe a couple months, we should be done with this book probably in about three months or so.

Paul writes to them as one who loves them, he wants their best, they're having problems, and he starts off the first six chapters by saying, here's some things that you're not doing rightly. Remember those four things?

You're not unified, chapters 1 through 4. You're not really doing any church discipline, there's incestual relationships going on and you don't do anything about it, chapter 5. Chapter 6, you're suing one another in Christian love.

And the end of chapter 6, there's immorality going on sexually and you're not doing anything about it. Paul said, I want to address those issues. Remember you're a Christian, you're bought by the blood of Christ, don't you want to live in light of your Redeemer, the risen King?

And then they had asked him some questions, and we don't know the exact questions, but chapter 7 through 16 talk about the answers to those questions. And so there's a series of responses starting in chapter 7.

Is celibacy legitimate? Can you eat meat offered to idols, Christian liberty issues? What about veiling women in public worship? What about the Lord's Supper? And then he comes to the question, what about spiritual gifts?

And that's where we are now, chapter 12, 13, and 14, spiritual gifts. How do we deal with spiritual gifts? And remember, they were big on tongues. We've got tongues and you don't, they'd say to some of the other people at Corinth, and it was causing a problem.

And so Paul's going to write about chapter 12, 13, and 14 on spiritual gifts. And today we're in chapter 13, and if you're not careful, you come to chapter 13 and you think this is the marriage chapter.

This is the wedding chapter. How many people here who are married, had 1 Corinthians 13, are a part of it read at your wedding ceremony? Several. Some are kind of shyly admitting it. Now, I love all scripture, and so if they read any scripture at your wedding, I'm happy.

But what's not the case is this. This is not a chapter that says everything we know about love is in it. There's more to love than this chapter. But this chapter is perfectly positioned so that if the Corinthians would start loving, all their other problems would go away.

Oh, there's divisions in the church. Love will solve the problem. Oh, there's no church discipline. Love will solve the problem. Oh, we're suing each other. Love will solve the problem. Oh, there's immorality.

Love will solve the problem. Oh, we don't have the right view of spiritual gifts because there's the haves and the have-nots. Love will solve the problem. And so, in review, it says in verse 1 of 1 Corinthians 13, these hypothetical illustrations to show us the necessity of love.

Three ifs. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I'm a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love, I am nothing.

If I give away all I have and if I deliver up my body to be burned but have not love, I gain nothing. And then Paul gives in verses 4 to 7 these 15 descriptions, other-oriented kind of love that will help them in the middle of their spiritual gift crisis.

Verse 4. Love is patient and kind. Ever see a church problem with there's lack of unity and if there was just kindness and patience involved, there would be harmony. Love does not envy. Oh, maybe then I shouldn't sue my Christian brother if love is not envious.

Love does not boast or is not arrogant. I have tongues and you don't. Remember that Greek word for arrogant in 1 Corinthians? Puffed up. What's the Greek word? Who knows it? Fusio. See? Visitors are thinking these guys all speak Greek or something.

Fusio. It sounds like what it is when you blow up a balloon. That's what you do. Fusio. Right? And you get this big head and if they think about love properly, they wouldn't be arrogant. It's not rude.

Verse 5. It does not insist on its own way. Would that take care of splits and those issues? It is not irritable or resentful. Lawsuits you can think of. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing. Clapping almost in a sense in chapter 5 that there's incest going on.

Love doesn't do that. But rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Certainly three great, four great verses about love that would be wonderful to have read at your wedding.

But Paul specifically here reads them to the church so they can think rightly about spiritual gifts. Which brings us to our passage today, verses 8 through 13. What's the first word in verse 8 and what's the last word in verse 13?

The bookends we have here are love. So let me read this. And here's the thesis statement before we even get into the passage. Focus on love because it lasts. Don't focus on sign gifts or for that matter any spiritual gifts because they don't last.

Focus on what lasts. Maturity, and they were a very immature church, maturity says grab hold of the temporal. Maturity says grab hold of the eternal. Love never ends, verse 8. As for prophecies, they will pass away.

As for tongues, they will cease. As for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. When I was a child, I spoke like a child.

I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three. But the greatest of these is love. Paul is going to tell this church and is telling the church, focus on the permanent. Don't focus on the temporal. And he's going to try to do two things as this happens.

To those who say we've got the spirit via tongues and other spicy, flamboyant gifts, he's going to say, now just back off a little bit and make sure you're loving. And then for the people who don't have those fancy gifts, those signed gifts, he's going to say, you can still do great things for the Lord, because even though you don't have a certain gift, you can still love.

And by the way, both groups, why don't you love one another? Solomon said in Song of Solomon, many waters cannot quench love, neither can the floods drown it. So today, whether you have the gift of teaching, the gift of giving, whether you have in your mind a prophetic gift or not, love is what lasts.

Focus on love. So, let me give you three charges in this passage to break it up in an outline, so you think rightly about love and spiritual gifts and church life. The first exhortation is, focus on love because it lasts.

I've already said it, but now let's make it clear. Focus on love because it lasts. Verse 8, love never ends. Love never ends. ESV says never ends. NAS says love never what? Who has NAS? Who has the authorized NAS?

Love never fails. Now, both of those are fine because in essence, that's the meaning. Love endures. Love is endless. Love doesn't lose its validity. Love is eternal. After all, God is love, an attribute of God.

It goes on forever. But literally, the Greek is love doesn't what? Fall. Love doesn't fall. It's never destroyed. It's always in. 1 Corinthians 10, 12, Corinthians, take heed lest you fall. I thought you were pretty smart when you knew the Greek word, but you couldn't fill in the blank on that one.

So, back down to, turn a few wood to Acts chapter 20, and let me show you the word used for fall. In 1 Corinthians 8 is the same one used here in Acts chapter 20. Has the idea of fail, but here it's fall.

Love doesn't fall. Doesn't fall to the ground. It's never destroyed. It's never defeated. Goes on forever, even in the eternal state. We're going to learn about that in a minute. Acts chapter 20, verse 7, it's just a neat passage.

If anybody ever asks you to read scripture sometime or you don't know what to do or say, just open your Bible to Acts chapter 20 and read it because just talk about the greatness of who God is and his preachers.

On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread, Acts 20, verse 7, we'll talk with him, intending to depart on the next day. And he prolonged his speech until midnight. Now, that is excellent preaching advice.

Prescriptive, descriptive. Okay, that's another story. There were many lamps in the upper room where we were gathered. And a young man named Eutychus, leave it to the youth, sitting at the window, sank into a deep sleep, tongue in cheek, as Paul talks still longer.

And being overcome by sleep, he what? Fell down, same exact word. He falls down from the third story and was taken up dead. But Paul went down and bent over him, taking him in his arms. He said, do not be alarmed for his life is in him.

When Paul had gone up and had broken bread and eaten, he conversed with them a long while until daybreak and so departed and after took the youth away alive. And don't you love this subtly? Great figure of speech here.

And we're not a little comforted. They were greatly comforted. He's hearing Paul preach all night long. By the way, after the preaching, did you notice they stuck around after the service and talked for a long time?

That's also godly. So if you're done with the service, we say in Jesus' name, amen, and you sprint to the car, you're not being very biblical according to Acts chapter 20. They stay for a long time until daybreak.

Well, okay, you don't want to read the Bible that way. But the point is this, the love of God that's talked about in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 never falls out of the window and dies. So Corinth, you're trying to glom onto the tongue's gift, the speaking gift of prophecy, the word of knowledge gift, when you should hold onto something that's never going to die.

Now, let's go back to 1 Corinthians chapter 13. Matter of fact, let's go to Ephesians. Forget 1 Corinthians chapter 13 for a moment. Now, let's go to Ephesians. Paul is saying in 1 Corinthians 13, love is permanent.

So focus on what doesn't collapse, focus on what doesn't end. It's not good for just this life, but also in eternity, there's going to be love in the ages, love in the eternal state, focus on that. Now, Ephesians chapter 2, I'm going to go to this passage for a reason, and you'll see that in just a minute.

Still focusing on love and how it doesn't fail. All right, let's work through this. You know the passage, but it's good to revisit it. Ephesians chapter 2, verses 1 and following. And you were dead in trespasses and sins.

Paul is addressing the spiritual state of every single person who is not a Christian. And even he is addressing every person before they got saved what they were like. Short of Christ Jesus, this is the description of every person.

This is a description of you, your mother, me, your children, dead in the trespasses and sins. Paul uses trespasses and sins. Trespasses is an aggressive, I crossed the line. Sins is I didn't quite cross the line, I just didn't do what I was supposed to do.

So Paul covers everything. Sins of commission, sins of omission, things that I should have done and didn't do, and things that I did that I shouldn't have done. And Paul says everybody's born in sin, total depravity, complete inability.

The word there dead means dead, necross. And if you go to a dead person and take a reflex hammer and whack it on their knee, what happens to their leg? Nothing, they're dead. I flew my dog to California this year and it was a funny story.

This part of the story has nothing to do with the message, but she couldn't go on my airline, so I flew nonstop to San Jose. She had to fly through Houston on a different airline. And I get to San Jose, power up my phone, and it says, message on there, sorry your dog did not make her connection in Houston.

I thought, I have instructed that dog. When you get to Houston, get off the plane, go find the next gate that says San Jose, settle down, then use the restroom, right? Then get your Starbucks, then shop a little bit.

But she can't even make her connection. And so, anyway, she flew in the next day. And I would take my dog all around in California, and the redwoods, I mean hundreds of feet up into the sky, redwoods.

And she had no appreciation for the redwoods. She's looking around. I take her to the beach, walk on the beach in Northern California. It's 48 degrees at night, no mosquitoes, and just beautiful, and the moon.

And she just looks around like she doesn't even care. She has no regard for the beauty of God's creation. You know, that's exactly what Paul is trying to say here. God created us, and he created us to worship him.

And unbelievers, every one of us before God saved us, and if you're not saved, you right now, you have no appreciation of God's greatest creation. That is, not the world, but the recreation that he's done, the new creation, because of what Christ has done at Calvary.

Dead in trespasses and sins. No boasting of the beauty of God for the unbeliever. Rebels, and enslaved, too. Look at verse two. This is just the worst news, in which you once walked. Following the course of this world.

The world said, buy this, and you bought it. The world said, do this, and you did it. The world said, think this, and you thought it. And you were buying into the world's MO through peer pressure. It only gets worse, though.

Following the prince of the power of the air. People love to say, I've got free will. Well, the world's got you in a stranglehold, and so does Satan. And what does the Bible say in John 8, 44? What Jesus said of them applies to all unbelievers.

You are of your father, the devil. One man said, unbelievers dance the devil's tune. The spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience. This just was our name, the son of disobedience. We were defined by our disobedience.

And we went for it, didn't we? Verse three, among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh. Carrying out the desires of the body and the mind. And we were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind.

How hopeless, how grim, how bad could this be? And this is so bad, we can't do anything about it ourselves. We can't self-extract. We can't get out of it. We can't be in a jet and then pull the, what do they call that, when you want to try to get out of the jet and pull the thing down?

Ejection seat, none of that. Can you imagine? The Bible says, our Lord is a consuming fire, a jealous God. He's made us to worship the sun and to appreciate his beauty. And we can't even see it. And then on top of that, God is a God of justice and holiness and vengeance is mine, I will repay.

People say, well, you know what? The only hell that exists is hell on this earth. How sad that is. They have no idea what they're talking about. One day if God doesn't save them and then they go to hell, they'll think that hell on earth was like heaven compared to where they are.

So this is our problem, this is our plight. And you can sprinkle babies on the head and you're not gonna get out of this depravity. You can try to be good, you're not gonna get rid of this. You're gonna try to say I'll be good from now on, you can't get out of this.

You can say, you know what, I'll do more good than bad. Yet as Sproul says, we have committed cosmic treason. And there is a judge, and I would say we're probably worse than Robert Kennedy was, who sadly said after he killed Robert Kennedy, they can gas me, but I'm famous.

So now what? Can't save ourselves, we're stuck. God could righteously judge us for what we have done, and that would be the end. But then the day dawns, look at verse four, but God. If you haven't listened to that sermon by David Martyn Lloyd-Jones online for free now at the Martyn Lloyd-Jones Recording Trust, called But God, Ephesians 2, 4, you need to listen to that.

What if the first word in chapter two, verse four, was and? And God then said, this is enough, judgment. What if it was therefore? Therefore, everything that you've earned, God then judged. But instead, there's a contrast.

God isn't just judge, jury, and executioner, he's also very what? Look at the text, but God being rich in mercy. It's just not merciful, but the text Paul is trying to show the Ephesians, he's rich in mercy, he's got a lot of it.

He's extravagant in mercy. And now we come to what we're talking about today, because of the great love with which he loved us. He loved us anyway. It's one thing to love the lovable, but now love that that is unlovable.

Mercy may be, love, how can it be? No wonder the song says, and can it be? A love that loves something where there's nothing to love. And to underscore it, just in case you don't really realize how great the love is, he repeats in essence what he said in verses one to three, in verse five.

Even when we were dead in our trespasses, he made us alive together with Christ. And then the anthem of the ages, by grace you have been saved. And raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ.

And you know something, friends? God wants forever and ever and ever this great love at Calvary to be shown forth through the ages. If God was a marketer and said, okay, four Ps, what are they? Product, place, price, and promotion, is that right?

Something close like that. We're going to, how can people know this so I can demonstrate it, so I can make a publicity program? I always think of those biplanes that drive by the beach, and they've got a long cable, and then a huge banner that's promoting something, Drake Red Bull or something.

Right, you know those here? You go to the beach here at all? Sand, water, lots of Bible verses in the thing about sand and water, beach. And so forever, this love is so great, to love the unlovable, that God is going to have the eternal display of this redemption motivated by love, verse seven.

This is so great. People are like, yeah, heaven's going to be pretty boring. They don't understand. So that in the coming ages, see how gifts fail, but some things don't fail. Some things are going to go through, and it's going to be our salvation motivated by the love and grace and mercy of God.

So that in the coming ages, age after age after age after age, God might show the immeasurable riches of his grace and kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. 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.

Love Never Ends, So Focus on What Lasts

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 11 a .m. and Sunday evenings at 6 p .m. We're right on Route 110 in West Boylston, Massachusetts. You can check us out online at bbcchurch .org or by phone at 508 -835 -3400.

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