1 Corinthians 16, Who Do You Know?

1 Corinthians chapter 16, beginning of verse 1, hear the word of the Lord. Now concerning the collection for the saints, as I directed the churches of Galatia, so you also are to do.

On the first day of the week each of you is to put something aside and store it up as he may prosper, so that there will be no collecting when

I come. And when I arrive, I will send those whom you accredit by letter to carry your gift to Jerusalem.

If it seems advisable that I should go also, they will accompany me. I will visit you after passing through Macedonia, for I intend to pass through Macedonia, and perhaps

I will stay with you, or even spend the winter there, so that you may help me on my journey wherever I go.

For I do not want to see you now, just in passing. I hope to spend some time with you, if the

Lord permits. But I will stay in Ephesus until Pentecost, for a wide door for effective work has opened to me, and there are many adversaries.

When Timothy comes, see that you put him at ease among you, for he is doing the work of the

Lord, as I am. So let no one despise him. Help him on his way in peace, that he may return to me, for I am expecting him with the brothers.

Now concerning our brother Apollos, I strongly urged him to visit you with the other brothers, but it was not at all his will to come now.

He will come when he has opportunity. Be watchful, stand firm in the faith, act like men, be strong.

Let all that you do be done in love. Now I urge you, brothers, you know that the household of Stephanus were the first converts in Achaia, and that they have devoted themselves to the service of the saints.

Be subject to such as these, and to every fellow worker and laborer. I rejoice at the coming of Stephanus and Fortunatus and Achaicus, because they have made up for your absence, for they refresh my spirit as well as yours.

Give recognition to such men. The churches of Asia send you greetings.

Aquila and Prisca, together with the church in their house, send you hearty greetings in the

Lord. All the brothers send you greetings. Greet one another with the holy kiss.

I, Paul, write this greeting with my own hand. If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed.

Our Lord come. The grace of the Lord Jesus be with you. My love be with all in Christ Jesus.

Amen. May the Lord add his blessings to the reading of his holy word. Well, who do you think is worth knowing?

I mean, the world has criteria, you know, accomplishments in athletics or in academics or business that mark those they say are worth knowing, who are important people, dignitaries, celebrities.

Do you know anybody really important? You know, twice in my life I've been associated with important people.

First, I had a coach who had coached at the U .S. track and field Olympic team. Once driving back from a meet with that coach, as the coach was driving,

I sat up front in the passenger seat with the intention of asking him questions, trying to pry from him everything

I could about athletes at that level, you know, the highest level. You know, what are they like? What are people worth knowing like, you know, like?

What's different about them? Well, my coach, Coach McClure, you know, he wasn't a talkative man. He didn't say a whole lot.

So, I had to ask him, I asked him, you know, what are those Olympic athletes like? He said, they're just like normal people.

That's all. Okay, what do I do now? I didn't know what else to say. The second time

I knew somebody regarded as important was when I got to be the teaching assistant for a professor at the

University of Chicago who had won the Nobel Prize in economics. Now, my coach had been a big shot in the world of athletics.

My professor was a big shot in the world of academics. He was such a big shot. He was someone whom people would want to know that when the

University of Chicago opened an extension in Singapore after I had just recently graduated with my own

PhD and was back in Singapore, they sent my professor there, Professor Fogel, there to Singapore to inaugurate it.

And he's such a big shot, the Singapore government recognized the opening by sending the president of Singapore to greet

Professor Fogel and the other dignitaries to inaugurate this extension of the University of Chicago. I was invited to the reception because of my association with Professor Fogel.

With there, you know, with all these big shots there, basically a room full of big shots, probably

CEOs, government leaders, ultra -wealthy people, you know, officials of all kinds.

And then an official spokesman announced with great seriousness, ladies and gentlemen, the president of the

Republic of Singapore. As he walks into the room, I thought to myself, man, if I only knew how to hobnob, you know, how to small talk, how to associate with people, how to come up to somebody you hardly know and greet them and make friends with them, you know, how to network, they call it.

If I only knew how to do that, I could make some real connections here, man. I mean, this is a room full of really important people, but I didn't know how.

What do I do? What do you come, what do you just say to the president of Singapore, you know, how's your job, how you liking it?

What's going on? Or some corporate head or some billionaire, you know, what do you say?

How's life? Like the weather? Crazy rich Asians? What do you say to them? I didn't know.

So I had my snack, my refreshment, and I left. I didn't get to know any dignitaries.

Who do you know? In this last chapter, Paul describes for us people we should know, true dignitaries, and he describes three characteristics of people we should know.

They are first giving, second, they're serving, and finally, they're loving.

First, people worth knowing are giving. Here, Paul is asking them to gather an offering for the

Christians in Jerusalem, the mother church. The Christians there were poor, probably because they were more severely persecuted there by the authorities in Jerusalem.

It would cost a lot to be a Christian in Jerusalem. And also, there had been a famine in that area in Israel, and so that had deprived everyone.

And so Paul wants the Corinthians to contribute to them. But by doing that, he's also making an important spiritual point, important for them in their day and important for us.

The Corinthian church would be mostly made up of, the people he's writing to here, we just read, mostly made up of Gentile believers, the

Greeks. They would speak Greek. They have their culture and their heritage from Greek history and with Socrates and Plato and Aristotle and all that Greek mythology.

They would have believed that they were civilization. While the church in Jerusalem that he's saying, that he's telling them, you know, give money to them, they were almost entirely made up of Jewish believers.

They had been raised on the Old Testament. They were sure they were God's chosen people, that the only way to become one of God's people was to become one of them, become a

Jew. And so there was, there was a vast cultural and ethnic divide between them, what

Paul calls a wall of hostility in Ephesians chapter 2. Otherwise they were both kind of, they both think we're the best and those other are just dogs.

That was their attitude toward each other. But here Paul is saying that the people worth knowing give to break down that wall.

By spearheading this offering, taking the Greek Corinthian church and taking from them, asking them to give, of course voluntarily, and giving it to the

Jewish Jerusalem church. Paul is teaching them an object lesson and the theme of which, the theme of this object lesson, that he's been, it's the same theme he's been trying to teach them with words throughout this letter.

That there's one true church, you should all be united, and your faith is not all about you.

Remember they were the group of people, some of them showed up to the Lord's Supper and they would just indulge themselves and not care if some came later and didn't have anything.

And here he's taking that not only, and that true in your local church, it's not just about you individually, but remember these other people.

It's true about people in other churches around the world. It's not just about you.

And this offering is an object lesson to teach that. You have to fork across some money.

It teaches your mind. Life is not just about me. That's his theme.

The offering is to unite them across ethnic lines, across cultures, to teach them that they are to care for more than just, you know, our kind of people.

That all believers of whatever race or nation are our kind of people.

And don't let that just be some, you know, high -flown rhetoric, lofty sounding phrases, sweet poetry about, you know, about love and and unity, sing kumbaya around the fire.

Let it be real. Let's meet their needs. Don't be like somebody, oh I really feel bad that you're deprived, you don't have enough money, and then you walk away and do nothing about it.

Don't be like that. Make it real. Meet their needs if you have the ability to. And that's what this offering is about.

It's practical love. So for us, we say we are interracial about the church.

We see here two aspects about being, quote, interracial. First, it's not really an option for a church.

It's not like something you can, well, they'll be interracial, but we'll be a white church or we'll be a whatever kind of church.

No. If it's the Lord's church, it's got to be interracial. But it's not an option that you be, that somehow you can be a particular ethnic group kind of church.

The church was from the beginning meant to be made up of all kinds of people.

All those whom the Lord calls. Second, we must be intentional about it. Paul has devised this offering intentionally to teach the

Corinthians and some of the other Gentile churches. He mentions the church at Ephesus, right? Galatia. That is doing the same thing there with the

Gentiles there in Galatia. To teach, to be involved with your Jewish brothers and sisters. Cross that ethnic divide.

It's not just left up to your feeling. You know, we don't mind if people from another race come in here, but we do nothing to make it happen.

No, he's being intentional about it. He's devised an offering that made them think about their connection to believers in Jerusalem.

Think about their needs. Not just about my needs, what's in it for me. Think about them. Believers of another, believers in another ethnic group.

And then actually have to travel. He's taking some of them, a few that he said, select a few men, and travel to deliver this money to Jerusalem.

So you'd personally hand it over. You know, a few representatives, you get to know these people.

We cannot cross barriers by just following our natural inclination, kind of passively. Well, everyone's welcome here, but we do nothing about it.

We have to be intentional to be interracial, to cross ethnic lines.

People you should know are giving, and they're giving in a disciplined way. First, he says in verse 2 that they meet on the first day of the week.

That's the day the Lord Jesus rose from the dead. And so it's called the Lord's day. Second, notice that giving is a discipline in verse 2.

Notice the disciplined way he talks about it. It requires you to plan, requires you to prioritize, practice self -control, be systematic.

That is, you have a system that ensures that you give, that it comes before paying for your luxuries, like your cable

TV and your excess eating out. Notice that he clearly describing a system, a regimen to structure your giving.

First day of the week, he says, set aside, store it up. It's in proportion.

All that, it's very intentional, very thought out. And he tells them to set aside something every week.

That is, of course, that's why we take up an offering. That's why we meet on the first day of the week. This is the command or at least the precedent that we are obeying when we take up that offering.

And it should be done as a structured, a disciplined part of your Christian life. It's part of being a disciple, right?

You should know the word disciple comes from discipline. First, resolve how much you will give.

That should be based, as he says here, on how you have been prospered. How the Lord has prospered you.

In other words, it's on a proportional basis. So the more income, the more you give. It wasn't like the temple tax that all

Jewish men were supposed to pay. It was a flat, you know, flat fee for everyone. Everyone paid the same.

Instead, it is a percentage. So many Christians make it a tithe, 10%. That's what Abraham practiced with Melchizedek.

That's what God told Israel to practice in the law. Even the Lord Jesus told the Pharisees to, that they were right to strictly give 10%.

They just forgot mercy, kindness, and justice. You can argue that the proportion doesn't have to be 10%.

Maybe. But I rather doubt that the Lord is leading you to give less than that. But his principle here is to give a proportion, a percentage, so that as you are prospered, your giving goes up.

And it could go down, like if you retire or become unemployed. And so even then, you give in a disciplined way.

It's not just for the rich to give if they have excess income. Remember, in the first few chapters of 1 Corinthians, he said that these people at the

Corinthian church, he said not many of them were rich. They were not a wealthy church.

Most of them were poor. But every one of them is told to practice the discipline of giving. Notice that in the middle of each one of you.

Not many of you are rich, but each one of you needs to give. Even the poor have to give.

All of us are to be givers. We give a proportion. We set our money aside. In our case, you know, offering basket and then in a bank account, so it doesn't just disappear.

Giving a priority, not an impulse. Give, not just when we have excess and we feel the urge, when there is some extra cash burning a hole in your pocket, or we happen to pour on the appeal and play on your emotions.

No, you give. It's part of your life. Notice that in verse 2, Paul wants all the offering to be collected before he comes and in a systematic disciplined way, kind of separates himself from the offering, from the money.

He says that he does not want to take with the offering when he arrives. Now, if he were like many today, he could think that he'd put on the hard sell when he comes.

He'd manipulate emotions. You know, he could describe, you know, arrive there. Everyone bring your all your money to church.

He arrived there and described the pathetic condition of the poor suffering

Christians in Jerusalem. I mean, how can you just sit there and allow them to suffer like they are?

He could be, he would be weeping as he told stories of faithful apostles who couldn't be bailed out of jail because they didn't have the money and and their families are left without support.

Their children are hungry. The children of the believers are huddling in fear and shivering and cold and unable to afford even a crumb.

And you, you're spending all your money on the theater and cable TV. Oh, won't someone think of the children?

He could pour it out like that. I'm not, am I good at that? I don't know. Maybe not. Mary doesn't think I do a good job at that.

I will. But as Priscilla is softly playing the organ in the background, he send the ushers out, take up the collection, telling one heart -rending story after another, you know, playing on their emotions.

And then he, then he say, you know, if you give 10, 10, maybe make it 100 shekels, give 100 shekels now, we'll send you as our gift back to you a copy of my newest letter to the

Ephesians. Or for only a thousand shekels, you could get an autographed copy of my letter to the

Romans. Something like that, right? The, the, the gimmicks people play today to get people to give, to pry money, get them to give on an impulse.

No, he doesn't do anything like that. Giving to the Christian is a discipline, not an impulse. The grocery stores, you know, they put candy bars.

You ever notice they put candy bars and tabloid magazines and just by the checkout because they want you to act on impulse.

You know, you're standing there, you're waiting for the cashier to be finished with the person ahead of you, looking around and you kind of look like the looks of that Snickers bar or the headline catches your eye.

Did you know they found an alien Bible? Apparently it had a crashed UFO and the aliens worship Oprah.

Did you know that? It says so in the weekly world news. Don't you want to buy that to read about? Really reliable story,

I'm sure. They want you to handle your money on impulse. You know, buy that Snickers bar or that tabloid that you don't really need.

Some people manipulate others to give, even to give to ministries using the same tactics, appeal to impulse.

But here Paul says giving should be a discipline. That's why we don't hear, we don't hype up our giving.

We don't have a special procession of the ushers, which would be like two of you. It's going to look funny, but and we make out a show out of a long lengthy prayer about giving and maybe while the music plays and then we put the big offering on top of the table as though it's a ram being sacrificed or something like that.

No, that's, we don't hype it up like that. You're not to act on impulse, but that doesn't mean that it's not an act of worship.

It is. It's one of the disciplines of your Christian life. It is one of those.

Paul here wants the offering to be completely taken up after, after weeks of being set aside before he gets there.

And then he wants to take a few of them, representatives of the, by the church. They're recognized as reliable by them, certainly givers themselves, because they're giving a lot of time and exertion to travel to Jerusalem on that day.

It's particularly, it's not getting on a plane and being there in a couple hours. It's traveling by foot, maybe by ship to deliver the offering accredited by letter from them and go with them to take the offering to Jerusalem and then hand it over personally.

You get to see these people you're giving to. To be someone worth knowing, you need to be a giver.

Who do you think is worth knowing? Here are those who serve are worth knowing.

Paul wants them, Paul wants to help them serve. So he'll offer himself as someone that they can serve.

As odd as it may sound, sometimes we help others by giving them an opportunity to serve.

Even if it's serving us. Paul is once again, trying to teach them with an object lesson. They thought they were kings.

You know, they thought they were royalty. Perhaps if they have to host him for a while, help him on his journey, feed him breakfast, clean up after him, give him clean towels, that kind of stuff.

Perhaps if they have to do that for a while for him, they'll learn to have a servant's heart by actually serving him.

And so we serve you sometimes by giving you opportunities to serve. You just struggle with pride.

You inwardly feel, you know, you're royalty. You should be a king or a queen ruling over this earth.

Well, then come. If that's a struggle of yours, then come here on a Saturday afternoon or Sunday evening and pick up pieces of crumbs of cookies dropped on the floor or ride in the bus or the van and keep the kids in order.

Maybe pick up the trash after they leave. You'll do us a favor and it will be good for your soul too.

Paul tells the Corinthians to help Timothy to do yourself some good by serving him.

Now he is in verse 10 doing the work of the Lord and the Corinthians can participate in that. They can be doing the work of the

Lord too by putting Timothy at ease, by not despising him, by being a good host to him, serving him, by helping him on his way.

What you do to help someone else serve the Lord is itself serving the

Lord. It wasn't as though the Corinthian church was completely lacking such people. They had some of them.

Beginning in verse 15, he mentioned several people from Corinth who helped and served and so were people worth knowing.

He's holding them up. Corinthians, you want to know who are the people worth respecting? Here they are.

Right in your midst. Stephanus, take him for example. Stephanus and his household devoted themselves to the service of the

Lord. Because of that, the fact that they were dedicated to service, they weren't thinking they're kings now.

They're going to serve. They deserve to have others wait on them hand and foot.

Paul said to verse 16, be subject to such as these, to those who serve.

Then in the next verse, he points out two more men besides Stephanus. Stephanus means crown.

First, then there's Fortunatus. His name means lucky. Serve lucky. And Achaicus, his name just means he's from Achaia.

They too served Paul and refreshed him. Because of that, they deserve special recognition to be people that we should know.

In other words, look for people with that characteristic, people who serve. Maybe not the kind who are flashy and bubbling over with personality and charm, not the stunning good looks or the confident swagger like John Wayne, but the kind that serves.

Let those be the characteristics that catch your attention and your admiration.

Today, while we're eating and drinking and chatting, notice those who help.

Those who get stuff, you know, make it possible. So you have the forks and the napkins and stuff who provide the food and the drinks, who get things put in place then after so we can have the kids later this afternoon.

Notice them. It says right here in verse 16, be subject to such as these.

Be subject to those who serve. Give recognition to such men in verse 18.

Now, you don't have to feel guilty for eating and chatting, but appreciate those who serve so the rest of us can eat and chat.

Let me tell you. There are people worth knowing. I remember realizing when someone who was serving was worth knowing.

It was my second year of seminary in California. It was St. Patrick's Day in 1989. An Irish student there who

I knew was having a St. Patrick's Day party. I guess that's what Irish people do. And so I went. The food was not particularly good.

I remember talking with this one young lady at this party and she was talking about her experiences, she said, with God.

She seemed genuine and enthusiastic enough, but she just talked on and on and it became clear that she was very interested in herself.

And as she talked on and on, I also began to realize that that was not an interest that we had in common.

And so I noticed one of the other young ladies who was at the party. This one was serving. She wasn't talking on and on about herself.

She was just quietly going around doing the things to keep the refreshments stocked up, help keeping it orderly and so on.

And so as she kind of passed by, come over here and met, introduced her to this talkative lady, was talking on and on about herself.

I was trying to teach her an object lesson, the talkative girl, that the people worth recognizing aren't the ones who are so impressed with themselves.

I don't know if the talkative girl got the message. Sometimes people miss object lessons. I don't even remember her name, but I do remember the girl going around serving.

I was so impressed with her almost 29 years ago, I married her. So who do you know?

Paul, one of the Corinthians, and he wants us to recognize, even submit to those who serve. He wants them and he wants us to become people like that.

So he's going to go there. He's going to Corinth and give them an opportunity to serve him.

But first he wants to stay in Ephesus because he says a wide door for effective work has opened to him.

We know something about this from Acts chapter 19, where we'll be next week as we get back to Acts next week.

Ephesus, from Ephesus, he was able to get the gospel out to the whole region. Ephesus was a big city, important region.

And he went right there. Ephesus was kind of crossroads. And so there were a lot of people going through. It's what we now call

Asia Minor or Western Turkey, or what they called Asia then. And this, the door, he says, was wide open.

So many people heard and many of them were converted. And eventually so many of them were converted that it affected the idol -making industry.

Business for the idol -makers was beginning to dry up because so many people were becoming converted.

And the new Christians weren't buying any idols. And so the leading idol -maker, Demetrius, a silversmith, whom we'll hear more about next week, stirred up a riot against Paul and the

Christians, basically threatening them violently. So that was the wide door that Paul stepped through, right into trouble.

Notice at the end of verse nine, there are many adversaries, you know, like Demetrius.

But think how strange that ninth verse is to us. Wide door is open for effective ministry.

Paul says he wants to stay there because there is that wide door for effective work. And he didn't say but.

Wide door for effective work. But, you know, this is downside. No, and there are many adversaries like Demetrius.

We often think of a door being open when there are no adversaries. Everything's going great.

We often think of being opposed as a sign that we're doing something wrong. If only we were more charming, you know, more skilled at winning friends and influencing people, then we wouldn't be opposed.

Demetrius would be won over. Everybody would be won over. Everyone would love us. Success, we think, is a lack of opposition.

Ah, but the Bible teaches the opposite. The Lord Jesus said, beware when all men speak well of you.

Here that there are many adversaries is but a sign that he was doing effective work.

That's the sign that it's effective. There's adversaries. There's people like Demetrius. If you're doing nothing, you're not going to be opposed by this world.

If you're ineffective, no one's going to care about you. The religious and the economic establishment is not going to be bothered if you're not doing the work of the

Lord. In our first year as a new church, I had a very strange conversation with a local pastor, pastor of another church around here, told me first that his church was doing absolutely nothing to reach out.

And second, that if we reach out in his territory, that he was, he will oppose us. I don't know what that meant.

Whatever. He's gone now, so don't worry about him. Let's understand there is a religious establishment here, which doesn't really like much of what we stand for.

You know, our message that salvation is by the sheer grace of God undercuts their pride in our own morality, our preaching that those who are truly saved, then their lives are changed.

They're converted. They're made alive in the spirit, their new creatures. And that shows in the fruit they bear, like we had in the church covenant that undercuts the easy believism that's so common today that you could just say you believe some doctrines and then live any way you want.

And that's supposed to be not a means to be a Christian. Our insistence that the church should be run according to God's word exposes their old time religion is just another religious tradition.

Our conviction that as we heard about earlier, that the church must be interracial, lays bare the shame they often want to hide now that they're all too frequent racism.

Our challenge that all members be active challenges their assumption that the church is just basically a weekly show. You know, a few people are doing the acting and everyone else is, it's just spectators, it's for the religious entertainment.

Or maybe there's a respectable religious establishment, cultural establishment around us just follows the world and believing that if we say what the

Bible says about some sins, like homosexuality, then that shows we're hateful and we're bigots, that kind of thing.

There's that establishment too. There is a religious establishment that will oppose us. The more effective our work, the more we will be opposed.

So don't be flabbergasted by it. Rejoice for that's what the religious establishment always does.

Now, unlike that pastor, Paul was not at all afraid of the ministry of others. You notice that here? He's not in competition with other

Christians for the religious marketplace, you know, for his piece of the pie, and neither should we be.

That's why when about two years ago Union Church opened their location in Yanceville, you know, we prayed for them openly here.

I've offered them the use of our gym for their youth if they want to use it. Here in verse 12, Paul tells them that he wants

Apollos to come to them. Think about that. Does that strike you as odd?

Because now think about that in the light of the first few chapters of this book, remember? The two major factions in the church in Corinth were those who said,

I'm a Paul, and the others were saying, I'm of Apollos. Now, if Paul were only concerned about his own name, about a rivalry, you know, his unquestioned prominence, that he'd be the big shot there in Corinth, that everyone would be about him, about his career, his own faction, about getting some of that offering money from the

Corinthians. If that's what his concern was, he would puff up himself.

I'm coming. Don't worry about anybody else. I'm all you need. And he would keep Apollos out of there. He would even try to talk down Apollos.

Apollos, you don't need to come. And he would tell the Corinthians about it. But, you know, here, you know, Apollos, he's kind of, you know, he's kind of new.

He's kind of, he's kind of, he doesn't really know a lot. He's kind of, he's kind of fluff, actually. Ever tell you how

Priscilla and Aquila, I mean, they had to tutor him on the basics. He could talk well, but he didn't really know much.

That's what he would be doing if it was all about himself. But Paul is only concerned for serving the

Corinthians. If Apollos will help them serve the Lord, then he urged him, he urged

Apollos to go visit them. He's not looking for territory or followers. He's looking for disciples.

And he doesn't care if they're made through him or through Apollos, just as long as they're made.

Disciples are, besides giving and serving, disciples are in those, you know, those four staccato commands in verse 13, four quick commands in succession.

They are watchful as they watch themselves, that they're not led astray, spending their lives chasing money or luxury or pleasure.

They're watching themselves. They are, they stand firm in the faith, he says, that is they're disciplined not to be lured away, undermined by whatever subtle arguments that justify whatever it is people want to justify that they want to do.

They act like adults because they're mature. Not just led astray by their feelings and their whatever hurt feelings and they go away pouting.

No, they're not like that. They're not just doing whatever they feel like doing. They are, he says, strong. And he tells them if Apollos will help make you like that, watchful, firm, mature, and strong, then listen to him.

And this is when we know that our service is really of the Lord. It's not just a church or organization or career or our own sense of religious accomplishment.

People who just want to grow a church, just grow a name for themselves, a career, well, those kind don't necessarily deserve our recognition.

But those who serve to grow God's kingdom do. People you should know are giving and serving and, he says, loving.

Love is not just one thing you do, you know, along with the list of other things. You check that box that Christians are supposed to do.

We're supposed to, right, we're supposed to give and to serve and to love, right? Okay, I know that already. You might think, well, no, not so fast.

The Corinthians didn't know what love was. That's why Paul had to describe it for them in chapter 13. There was just another gift alongside many gifts, as though, you know, some have the gift of tongues and some have the gift of prophecy and some have the gift of helping and some have the gift of love.

That's just, that's their thing. No, love was the more excellent way, the more excellent way you do every gift.

It was the way every gift is supposed to be used. If you don't have it, then whatever your gift is, no matter how impressive it looks to people, and it's nothing.

Love is, he says in verse 14, the very atmosphere in which we are to live. It is possible to give strictly like the

Pharisees, making sure that you tie from every herb you grow in your garden. So scrupulous that every cent of income is measured.

So you don't forget to give your 10 % of it. You make sure you gave 10 % of your

Halloween candy, your trick or treat candy, 10%, you know, count out 10

Snickers bars and we get one. Is that, did you make sure? Of course, when people think that way, so strict and they're counting and they're just thinking of keeping the rules, they often are sure they want to, they want, they want to be scrupulous about not accidentally giving too much.

That's often what's behind it. They want to make sure they give the right amount, but not one penny too much.

The person without love will work hard not to give too much. We have the same today. We, there are people who will give their tithe, but they do it because they've been taught, well, that's their obligation.

It's what they owe. It's their duty. And one way to tell us someone who has been giving without love is to teach them rightly.

I think that the tide, which is an old Testament tax that you're now free not to tie.

You're not bound by that law anymore. And if all along they've been giving without love, they will immediately drop their giving.

We can serve without love, you know, so proud of ourselves for, for being the one.

We're the one who did our duty. If we forget about our duty to love, let all that you do be done in love, he says.

Who do you know who is worth knowing? Who do everything in love?

Especially, he concludes, love for the Lord. Without that love, he says we are cursed.

That's what he calls down on us in verse 21. Anyone does not love the Lord, let him be accursed. If we do not love the

Lord, then a curse comes on us. That's the, that love of the Lord then is that beating heart, which makes sense of everything else makes sense of out of all this.

It's why we come to church, why we call ourselves Christians, why we give and serve and read our Bibles and pray. It's that love that compels us to ask him to come now, come now,

Lord Maranatha, our Lord, come now. We're not so in love with this world that we first want to experience it, whatever, whatever this life has, our fill.

And then after we've had our fill, then Lord, you can come, you know, like when

I'm like 90 something. Come Lord. Now, whom have

I in heaven, but you. And there is nothing on earth that I desire besides you.

Psalm 73 verse 25. It's love that compels us to give because we love the work that we're giving for.

It's love that makes us rejoice when people are converted, when the gospel is spread, lives are transformed. Even if our particular church doesn't tangibly profit from it, it's love for the

Lord. Someone with that love, someone with that love is worth knowing.

Who do you know is worth knowing? Who loves the Lord? But the truth is, you know, naturally just left to ourselves, untouched by God's grace, by God's love.

We do not love the Lord. Romans one tells us that we, all of us, we all from the beginning, we all naturally know something about God from, from nature, from our conscience, but by nature, we hate

God. In Romans chapter eight, verse seven, Paul wrote that our, our natural mind that is untransformed, untouched by grace, that it is hostile to God.

We are in our natural condition, opposed to the Lord. We don't love him.

And so we earn Paul's curse. We are cursed, left to ourselves.

Even if we were religious and moral and decent and a good citizen, a good family member and a good friend, even if we paid our tithe and did our duty and we served and we gave our money, we helped our neighbor, we were good to our family, we are still cursed because we hate

God. We are damned. And there's nothing we can do to escape that damnation because there's nothing that we can do to change our heart, to love this

God to whom we are so naturally opposed, hostile, cursed.

There's nothing that we can do. But the good news is it doesn't depend on what we can do.

It depends on the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ.

The last name mentioned in this letter, the Lord Jesus Christ.

He's the one who gave, who served, the one who loved the

Father by loving us. He's someone worth knowing.