Do we need this for anything? Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, you've probably heard or asked that question before. Do we need this for anything? It usually comes up when you are in the garage or the shed or some other place on the property needs to get cleaned up. Reorganize. You come across things and there are some things you know that you need, you must have, things that you know are indispensable. You keep those things for sure. But there are other things that you look at and you think, We don't need this. And so we throw it away, or perhaps we store it out of the way somewhere, maybe in the attic or in the basement. We can do that with all kinds of things, but we can also do that with love, can't we? We can live and act as if love is not all that important. Instead of showing humble and sincere regard for others and a self-sacrificing care and concern for their real needs and well-being, we can serve and live for ourselves. We can be more concerned about our own reputation, our own rights, our own opinions, our own feelings, our own comforts. That can happen. It can happen anywhere. In our marriages, in our families, in our homes, in our workplaces, in our schools, on social media, and yes, also in our church. We might say with our mouths that love is important and even necessary, but in practice we can live and act as if it's dispensable. Well, that was the problem the church in Corinth was struggling with. Already in 1 Corinthians 1, we learn that there were divisions in the church. They were fighting over who was the best leader, the one everyone should follow. Some said they followed Apollos. Others said they followed Peter. And then still others said, well, we follow Paul. And then there were some others that played the real trump card. Well, we follow Christ. So there were the faithful ones. In the meantime, according to 1 Corinthians 5 and 6, they were not only shrugging their shoulders at a grievous sin in the church, but they were also cheating and doing wrong to each other themselves. They were avenging each other. And not only that, they were despising and judging each other in indifferent manners, like eating food offered to idols. Even the Lord's Supper was a battle scene. People were fighting to be first. Some were going hungry and others were getting drunk. The church was a mess. And then there were some who claimed to be more important than others because they could speak in tongues or prophesy. That's what Paul addresses in 1 Corinthians 12, and he reminds them there, listen, you are bound together. You are bound together as the body of Christ by grace, by the Spirit, and you need to use your gifts, your various gifts, not to lord it over each other, but to humbly serve each other in love. And yet the Corinthian church was living and acting as if love was unimportant, not necessary, as if it was dispensable. That's the problem our text this morning, 1 Corinthians 13, verses one through three, addresses. It emphasizes, you see, that love is indispensable. 1 Corinthians 13 is sometimes known as the love chapter, and for good reason. Because that's what it's all about. It's about charity or love. But the kind of love it's talking about is not a warm, fuzzy feeling. The Greek word is agape. And in the Bible, in this context, it refers here to the humble, sincere regard for others and a self-sacrificing care and concern for their real needs and well-being that can include what we sometimes call tough love. And it's important to understand that because love is so distorted and twisted in our culture today. It's often reduced to just the idea of being nice and affirming, to just being tolerant and just being a doormat, just doing whatever people want. But that's not what 1 Corinthians 13 is talking about. It's talking about the humble, I'll say it again, the humble, sincere regard for others and a self-sacrificing care and concern for their real needs and well-being. And verses 1 through 3 make clear that that love is indispensable. It's indispensable. Three times we read, he talks about, if I have something, but if I do not have love, or if I do something, but if I do not have love, I am nothing. It is nothing. In other words, we can't do without love. That's the message of the first three verses of this chapter, and that really should motivate us to follow after and to pursue, to run after love, as Paul calls for in 1 Corinthians 14, verse 1. Lord willing, this will be the first of four sermons based on that call in 14 verse 1, the call to follow after love. You could title these sermons, you could put the title over these four sermons, Pursuing Love. The other three sermons will deal with the picture of love, and then the excellency of love, and then finally the source of love. But this morning we'll consider especially the indispensability or the absolute necessity of love. And as we do this, God willing, my prayer to God as well as my plea to you is this, that each one of us would ruthlessly apply what we learned from God's Word in this series. First of all, to our own selves. That each one of us would examine, first of all, our own selves thoroughly and honestly, and I'm talking to myself, and humbly in this matter, not others as we can be so prone to do. Let us remember, this is my plea, let us remember Christ's warning about beholding and trying to pull the speck out of our brother's eye while there's a beam in our own. And so with that in mind, let's give our attention now to our text, with our theme being the indispensability of love. We'll look at it in three ways. First of all, powerfully demonstrated. Secondly, personally confessed. And thirdly, practically applied. Notice with me, first of all, how powerfully demonstrated the indispensability of love is in our text. Let's listen again to these three verses, and I'm just going to use the word love instead of charity. 1 Corinthians 13 verse 1, though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love. Let me read that again because I want you to catch the emphasis here. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love, I am become a sounding brass or a tinkling or clanging cymbal. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned and have not love, it profits me nothing. But what is Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, doing here? He's powerfully demonstrating, isn't he, that love is indispensable. And he does that in two ways. First of all, in verses one and two, he shows that the greatest spiritual gifts we can have are worthless without love. In verse 1, he mentions the gift of tongues. The gift of tongues here refers to the miraculous God-given ability to speak, not gibberish, but other human languages. The first time it happened in the New Testament was at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came down and He filled the disciples. What happened? It says that they began to speak with other tongues or with other languages as the Spirit gave them utterance. It was, of course, a very attention-grabbing gift. Acts 2 tells us the people who were visiting Jerusalem from other places for the feast, for Pentecost, they were amazed. They marveled, saying to one another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans? And how hear we every man in our own tongues wherein we were born? We do hear them speak in our tongues the wonderful works of God. So it was an attention-grabbing gift. And it's understandable then that some of the Corinthians thought that this gift was the best gift to have. Paul says it's worthless without love. In fact, even the deluxe version of that gift, speaking with tongues of angels, is worthless. It's even worse than that, actually. It's terrible. It makes him, he says, like a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. It doesn't take too much to imagine what that sounds like, does it? If you have siblings or kids. Or you had kids in the home, you've probably heard something like this at one point or another. A kid gets into the pots and pans cupboard and he starts pulling out the lids, or she, and starts hitting them together as hard as they can. And it goes, bash, bash, clang, clang, clang. Oh, and you go, oh, that's a terrible noise. You cover your ears and you yell, stop! It's just terrible. That's what Paul says his speaking in tongues is like if he does not have love. It doesn't do anyone any good. It benefits no one. Now, of course, as far as I know, none of us claims to have the gift of miraculously speaking in other languages, even if you think the Spirit still gives that gift today. But that's beside the point. The point is that even the gift of speaking in tongues is worthless without love. And that implies that all our speaking, as well as our writing, is worthless if we do not have love. That's true of our speaking and writing at home. At church, on the computer, on our phones, at school, everywhere. It's all worthless without love. Love is a must-have. Do you have it? You see, love is necessary not just with speaking in tongues, it's necessary with the other great spiritual gifts too. Paul mentions two more of them in verse two. He mentions prophecy and faith. The gift of prophecy was the gift of receiving and revealing God's truth to others. It meant you could understand mysteries and mystery of God, and you could understand the knowledge of God, and Paul certainly had that gift. What's more, according to 1 Corinthians 14, that gift is really the greatest gift to have. Paul also mentions faith, the gift of faith. It's not referring here to saving faith, although that too is a gift of God. But Paul's speaking here not of faith to be saved, but rather miracle-working faith, the faith that God will do miracles in impossible situations. Prophecy and faith, these two great gifts. But Paul says, even they are worthless without love. Paul even says, though I have both these gifts in their fullest measure, though I have the gift of prophecy and understand not just some, but all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have not just some, but all faith, so that I could remove mountains and have not love, I am nothing. What a powerful demonstration of how indispensable love is. Don't you see it? With me. It doesn't matter, Paul is saying, God is saying, it doesn't matter what gifts we have or how great and impressive they are. If we don't have love, it's not just less valuable. It's totally worthless. We're nothing. Spiritual gifts can be good, of course, but the greatness of a person, Paul is saying, has nothing to do with spiritual gifts. It has everything to do with love, with a humble, sincere regard for others and a self-sacrificing care and concern for their real needs and well-being. Isn't that important to remember? It can be so easy for us, can't it, to put a premium on our gifts, on our talents, on our abilities? But what about love? The greatest spiritual gifts we have, we can have, are completely worthless without love. Or maybe you're thinking, OK, but surely my works, my good deeds count for something? But look at verse 3, not just the greatest spiritual gifts we have, but even the greatest spiritual works we can do are worthless without love. That's what Paul says, and though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned and have not love, it profits me nothing. That's quite something, isn't it? What's Paul saying? He's saying, I can give my money and my possessions away to the poor all my life long. But if I don't have love, it's worth nothing. I can tithe and I can put my money in the offering bag faithfully every week. I can even give more and far above 10%. I can give everything to the needy and to the church and to Christian organizations. But if I don't have love, It's worthless. Not even great acts of self-sacrifice count. I can give my life to full-time ministry. I can serve in the church. I can give my time to preparing sermons, to preparing Sunday school lessons and catechism lessons. I can go visiting. I can help with camps. I can go on mission trips. I can even become a missionary. I can serve on various Christian boards and committees. I can do it all. I can even die as a martyr. But if I do not have love for others, it's a complete waste. It's useless. Not just some of it, but all of it. It profits me nothing. It's pretty shocking, isn't it? It's also humbling. You might think, wait a minute, wait a minute. How can anyone do those things without love? It seems impossible, doesn't it? But it's not. That's how sinful and selfish we are by nature. We shouldn't just assume that the good things we do, we automatically do out of love for others. The reality is that by nature we're so sinful and so selfish of ourselves, it's possible to give of our things and even our lives for selfish purposes, to feel good about ourselves and to look good to others. Even Christians can struggle with this. Otherwise, why would the Spirit have inspired Paul to write this verse? Why would he have needed to tell us that even the greatest spiritual works we do are worthless without love? Love is indispensable for us. That's what the Holy Spirit through Paul is powerfully demonstrating in our text. We are nothing without love, without humble, sincere regard for others and self-sacrificing care and concern for their real needs and well-being. Nothing. The question is then, have we learned that? Have I? Have you? Does that show? Does it show in our marriage relationship? Does it show in our relationships with our children? Or with our parents? Or with our siblings? Does it show in our text messages? Does it show in our conversations and other interactions with each other? Does it show at school with your classmates? Doesn't the Spirit's powerful demonstration of love's absolute necessity call for and even demand that? How does that happen? What do we need so that we not only start to love but also grow in love? Well, that brings us to the second thing we see in our text. Love's indispensability is not only powerfully demonstrated, it is also personally confessed. Did you notice that? Paul doesn't speak in terms of the Corinthians. He doesn't say, if you don't have love, you are nothing. He also doesn't speak in general terms. He doesn't say if a person in general doesn't have love, he is nothing or she is nothing. No, he speaks in personal terms. He says, though I have the greatest spiritual gifts and do the greatest spiritual works possible, if I don't have love, I am become a sounding brass and a clanging cymbal. I am nothing. It profits me nothing. You see, he's saying these things about himself and he's not simply being tactful. He really means it. The indispensability of love is personally confessed. There's a couple things we should note about that. For one thing, notice the thorough nature of this confession. Paul doesn't make any exceptions for himself. He could have. He had so much he could have boasted about, so much he could have claimed was far more important than love. He refers to some of these things throughout his letters to the Corinthians, especially in 2 Corinthians 11 and into chapter 12. He had incomparable spiritual gifts. He had personally seen Jesus and been made an apostle and a preacher of the gospel. He had done the signs of an apostle among the Corinthians. He had done wonders and miracles among them. He had received and proclaimed the mysteries and the knowledge of God. He had had visions and revelations of the Lord. He had been raised up to the third heaven. and his spiritual works were just as great, if not greater. He had never charged the Corinthians anything for all the preaching he did among them. He had labored more abundantly, he says, than any other apostle or preacher. What's more, he had suffered incomparably for his ministry. He had been whipped and beaten above measure. From the Jews he had been five times whipped, 40 minus one. Three times he was beaten with rods. He had been imprisoned many times. Once he was stoned. He had almost died many times. Three times he had suffered shipwreck. He had even been, he says, in the sea for a night and a day. He had made many journeys and been in countless dangers. He talks about perils of waters, and perils of robbers, and perils of his own countrymen, the Jews, and perils of the Gentiles, and perils in the city, and perils in the wilderness, perils in the sea, perils among false brethren. He had been in weariness and painfulness, in watchings and in sleeplessness often, in hunger and thirst, In fastings often, in cold and nakedness, no one was so gifted and worked so hard and made so many sacrifices as Paul had. And yet, Paul is confessing here in this text that none of it matters. if I don't have love. He makes no exceptions for himself. But what about us? Do we confess without exception that nothing matters if we don't have love? Do I confess that about myself? Do you confess that about yourself without exception? That nothing, not even all your gifts, not any of your talents, not any of your skills, not even any of your service, your sacrifices, your sufferings, none of it matters if you don't have love. That's what Paul confessed. But he does more than that. He also makes no qualifications. He doesn't say that if he doesn't have love, there's a bit of a problem. He doesn't even say, well, yeah, okay, it's a pretty big problem. He says, there's nothing. If I don't have love, he says, as it were, I have nothing, I am nothing. gain nothing. Is that your confession for yourself? Have you come to acknowledge that if you don't have love, that's more than just a little problem. It's a devastating problem. It leaves you with nothing. It completely undoes you. And it makes all your righteousnesses like filthy rags. Yes, it makes you even deserving of an eternity in hell. That's a hard confession to make, isn't it? At least if you understand love in the sense that Paul means it here, not as a feeling, not as just being nice and affirming and doing what people want. but as a humble, sincere regard for others and a self-sacrificing care and concern for their real needs and well-being. That's the kind of love Paul is talking about here. And then you see that love, that love is not something that any of us have by nature. You know, there's none of us here that can say, well, I've got it. There's none of us. There should be no boasting, no pride here. It's impossible for any of us to have this by nature because we are sinners. No, this love is not something we have by nature. The Bible says it's a fruit of the grace of God. It's a fruit of the Spirit. By nature we live only for ourselves. By nature we're prone even to hate God and our neighbor. So to confess, to make this confession, to confess that without love I am nothing, is to confess that I am nothing by nature. And that's hard. That's humbling. The temptation so often is to try and soften that. We either change the meaning of love so we can make it look like we do have love, or we live as if our outward acts of obedience, like our church attendance, or our devotions, or our prayers, or our decent behavior can count in place of it. That's what the Pharisees did. That's what the rich young ruler did, too. When he asked Jesus what he needed to do to inherit eternal life, Jesus reminded him of some of the commandments, and the man claimed he had kept all of them from his youth. But you know, then Jesus told him to go and sell all his possessions and give to the poor and to come and follow him. But the man wouldn't do that. He turned away, and he went away, the Bible says, sad, because he had great possessions. Jesus had shown him the one thing he actually lacked, love. And that without that, he was nothing, in spite of all of his outward obedience. But the man didn't want to admit that. It was too costly. It was too humbling. It was too hard. And so he turned away. And he went away. Sad. He left. What about you? What about me? The truth is, apart from the grace of God, none of us would make this confession. None of us would personally confess the indispensability of love so thoroughly the way that Paul does here. None of us would say, without love, I am nothing. Even Paul himself wouldn't have. He tells us in several passages that he used to think of himself as quite something because of his outward privileges and accomplishments. Let me just take one passage and read the list of accomplishments from Philippians 3, verses 5 and 6. Circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin. on Hebrew of the Hebrews, as touching the law of Pharisee, concerning zeal, persecuting the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless, that is blameless in an outward sense. But he thought he was blameless. And Paul, he says, I used to think of those things as game. So how, what changed? How did he come to this confession in 1 Corinthians 13? How did he and how do we come to confess that without love we are nothing? That brings us to the second thing to note about this personal confession, not just its thorough nature, but its divine origin, its divine source. You see, what brought Paul to make this confession was his encounter with the Lord Jesus Christ, the risen and ascended Lord. Do you remember what happened? He was on the road, traveling on the road to Damascus, planning to throw the Christians there into prison. And as he was traveling, suddenly there was a light, a bright light. And there was a voice saying, Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And Paul says, who art thou, Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus, whom thou persecutest. It is hard for thee to kick against the pricks. Paul met Jesus, and that changed his life forever. From then on, he realized that all his privileges and all of his accomplishments that he had been trusting in were nothing. They were even dung, he says, that in himself, he was nothing. Because what matters is love, and that was the one thing he lacked, real love, love for God, love for Jesus, and love for others. It was God's invasion of his life that taught him to personally confess, if I do not have love, I am nothing. That's what he needed. A congregation, that is what all of us need. We need God. We need God to come. No, we don't need a Damascus Road experience, but we need God to come and to graciously intervene in our lives. To come and to show us his blinding holiness. And to show us our total lovelessness. and then to show us his infinite love and to grant us repentance and saving faith in Jesus Christ. We need God to come and to dwell in us. Has he done that for you? Oh, If so, then surely this will be your personal confession as well as your growing conviction, won't it? If I do not have love, I am nothing. Is it? Is it your confession? Is it your conviction? How can it be otherwise? And only then you see, when we come to that personal confession, it's only then that we can really start to love and to grow in it. How then should we respond to the message of our text? How should we respond to the reality that if we do not have love, we are nothing? Well, that brings us briefly to our third point, the indispensability of love practically applied. And we'll get more into practical application next time when we look at the picture of love that Paul gives in verses four through seven, but just There are a few applications we can note now just thinking about the absolute necessity of love. The first is this, how important it is to examine ourselves, to see whether we are living in love. The indispensability of love makes us vital, doesn't it? And again, Again, I remind you, and I plead with you, we should each be focusing on ourselves here, not on others. It's easy to say, you know, it's easy to say, yeah, we need more love, when actually what we mean is, well, they need more love. It's easy to convince ourselves that we're more loving than we actually are. We need to examine ourselves. Do I, do I have Love, are we willing to spend time thinking about this question? Are we willing to be ruthlessly honest with ourselves here? Does my life, does your life reflect a humble, sincere regard for others and a self-sacrificing care and concern for their real needs and well-being? What about the way you interact in your marriage? With your spouse? What about the way you interact with your family? What about the way that you speak to or about others? What about the things that you say or the tone that you speak with? If you're in a position of authority as a husband or a parent or a leader, What about the way you exercise that authority? If you're under authority, what about the way that you respond to that authority? Love is indispensable. Let us then make sure that we examine ourselves and see how well, how well are we really doing? How well am I really doing? But also secondly, let us repent. Let us repent of any and all lovelessness. And that's something all of us will have to do because none of us loves with this kind of love perfectly. If you want proof, just try replacing the word, just try reading verses four through seven and replacing that word charity or that word love with your own name. So when we find less love in our hearts, in our lives, than we should have, or perhaps we find no love at all, then let us not just shrug our shoulders, let us not defend that, let us not excuse it, let us not continue in it, but let us also not despair. Because there is a Savior! There is a Savior for the loveless! Jesus Christ, and He's a Savior so full of grace and mercy, whose love is infinite, whose love passes knowledge. And this Savior, this Jesus, He gave His life in order not only to cleanse and to forgive us for all of our lovelessness, for all of our selfishness, for all of our hatred, but also to fill us with His love. and enable us to love others by His Holy Spirit in us. So let's bring our lovelessness to Him. Let us confess it, grieve over it, take a shame to ourselves for it, and let us ask for His forgiveness and for His renewal by His Holy Spirit, because He promises, He promises that He will receive all who come to Him. And finally, finally let us all commit ourselves to pursuing love. That's what the indispensability of love calls for, doesn't it? It calls us to pursue love. Like Paul pursued the Christians before he was converted to try and throw them in prison, to try and get them, to try and grab them. We need to pursue love to just run after it, to focus on it. How do we do that? What does that look like? Well, that's for next time when we look at the picture of love. But in essence, in essence, the way to pursue love is to pursue. Jesus Christ. Because he is the perfect picture of love, and he is the giver of love. That's what will unite people. So we're pursuing Jesus Christ sincerely. Oh, then let us pursue Him because love is indispensable. It's an absolute necessity. Without it, we're nothing. I'm nothing. You're nothing. That's the message of our text. And so as we close, that leaves each of us with the question, what are we doing? What are we going to do? with this love? Are we going to throw it away? Are we going to store it in the basement? Somewhere out of sight, as it were? Are we going to focus and pursue after our gifts, or our outward religion, or our opinions? or our rights, or our reputation, or our feelings, or our comforts, or are we, with the help of God, going to follow after love? What is your answer? Amen. Let us pray. Behold what manner of love, what manner of love you have, O Lord. And when we think about that, and we see how little love we have, Lord, please bless this word to our hearts. Grant that we would not use it to judge each other, but rather that we would first of all examine ourselves. and humble ourselves. And Lord, that we might together come to Jesus Christ, confessing our sins and seeking his help, abiding in him. That is the only way, oh Lord, we can learn. to love. Grant us this by your grace and by your Holy Spirit. Forgive all that was sinful, even in this hour, in our thoughts or in our words. We ask it in Jesus' name alone.