Amen. Well, it's time now to turn our attention to God's Holy Word. We're going to be looking today at 1 Corinthians chapter 13, one of the most famous chapters in the Bible. Just a little bit of heads up before we dig into the Word together. Many of you know that Beth and I both have COVID now at this point, so we're both sort of isolating, quarantining here in our bedroom. So if you hear a little bit of coughing or sniffling in the background, that's just Beth, and nothing to be concerned about. Both of us, I'm pretty much fully better just about, a little bit tired still. Beth's case seems to be pretty mild so far, so Keep us in prayer. We appreciate that. But it's time now to take a look at God's Word. And 1 Corinthians chapter 13 is going to be our focus for the next few weeks. So let's go to God's Word and let's look at the end of chapter 12, verse 31, and then all of chapter 13. Here is God's Holy Word. but earnestly desire the higher gifts, and I will show you a still more excellent way. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And 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. Love is patient and kind. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. 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. Amen. This is God's holy word. Let's pray together. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for the beauty and the truth of your word. We do pray that you would write your word on our hearts this morning. As we look to you, we pray that your Holy Spirit would make your word alive and active and sharp and penetrating, that you would write your word on our hearts in such a way that we will be challenged. where we are going astray and where we are not being faithful to you. We'll be comforted where we are weak and struggling to obey you. We will be changed, Father, to be more like Jesus, your Son, who is the perfect embodiment of love and our model for all things. We pray, Father, that you would help us to grow in the knowledge and love of you through the time we have together in your word this morning. And we pray this, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen, well first corinthians 13 we come to today. It is without a doubt one of the most famous Passages in all the bible people love first corinthians 13 people who don't even know very much about the bible at all Have probably heard first corinthians 13 and probably think it's powerful and beautiful. We hear it at weddings All the time. I remember the summer of 1997 when I was in china And we were doing a series of cultural evenings to try to share aspects of American culture with our Chinese students who were learning English and learning about American culture. And for one night, we put on a wedding. So we had a young married couple on our team, and we had a young man on our team who was ordained Baptist minister and so he went ahead and did sort of a wedding of them with all the vows and everything to show the Chinese students what a typical American wedding was like and of course he read 1st Corinthians 13 and of course our Chinese students most of whom had no knowledge of the Bible whatsoever and were not Christians were fascinated by 1st Corinthians 13 and they wanted to know where this was and it actually gave us an opportunity to show them scripture and to and to explain the Bible to them a little bit. So, this is, without a doubt, a beautiful section of Scripture. And that's not by accident, it's actually quite by design. You see, the Apostle Paul had been trained in classical rhetoric. And even though he deliberately chose not to use that classical training while he was in Corinth, ministering to them, You know, he explained earlier that while he was with them, he determined to know nothing among them except for Christ and Him crucified, because he wanted to put the focus on the simple and seemingly foolish message of the cross. He didn't want them to have their confidence in human eloquence or displays of wisdom, but he wanted them to trust in God, and he wanted them to see the power of the truth of the message of the cross presented plainly which means without all of the decorations that come from classical rhetoric. However, in 1 Corinthians, throughout the letter, Paul has actually been displaying his training in classical rhetoric, and there's been several places where he's used standard forms of classical rhetoric to show them that he actually does know how to speak with wisdom as they understood wisdom. In fact, in 2 Corinthians, Paul says that it's been said about him among the Corinthians that he's powerful in his letters, but he's weak and unimpressive in person. And this shows the contrast between the way Paul was writing to them and the way they perceived that, and the way that he had preached and taught among them when he was with them for a year and a half planting this church. So, in this letter he does use several forms of classical rhetoric to show them that he is capable of speaking according to classical wisdom, but that Christ is more important than that. And he does that here in 1 Corinthians 13. In fact, this is a very specific classical form known as an encomium. And I know at least a few of our students in our church have been classically educated and will know what an encomium is. But it's basically a piece of eloquent praise. And in this case, it's a piece of eloquent praise of love. It shows us first the absolute necessity of love in verses 1 to 3 as what we would be like and what we would have if we didn't have love, right? It shows us love in action, how love acts in verses 4 through the beginning of verse 8. And then finally shows us the superior and enduring nature of love as directly contrasted against prophecy, knowledge, and wisdom, and that comes in verses 8 to 13. So you've got a three-part encomium of love, a praise, an eloquent praise of the beauty and power of love. And we're going to break it down that way as we look at it together. This week we're going to be focusing on verses 1 to 3, looking at the necessity of love. Next week, we'll take a look at that portrait of love in action, verses 4 through the beginning of verse 8. And then, in two weeks' time, Lord willing, on February 7th, we'll close out our time in 1 Corinthians 13 by looking at the enduring superiority of love in verses 8 to 13. And so, 1 Corinthians 13 is read at weddings as a standalone, and it can be. It certainly stands on its own, and you don't need the context in order to get the power and the truth of it. But, for our purposes, as we're going through the whole book of 1 Corinthians, it's very important for us that we understand the context, because Paul is not just praising the necessity and the power and the superiority of love, he's teaching us in the Corinthians something very important about the vital necessity of love for being truly spiritual people as God's people in the church. And so he's in the middle of this section that goes from chapter 12 to chapter 14, where he's addressing to them spiritual things, the things of the spirit. That is, he's teaching them about spiritual gifts and what makes for a truly spiritual person. And so chapter 13 then comes after chapter 12 and before chapter 14, which might seem rather obvious, but it's important. So chapter 12, What was Paul emphasizing? We looked at it the last couple of weeks. He's emphasizing the fact that every member of the body of Christ has been gifted for ministry in service to the whole body of Christ. We are, each one of us, members of the body, and we are gifted by the Spirit for service in ministry to the body. And so, every member is important. Every member is gifted and every member is called to serve. So we shouldn't just highly prize those few people in the church who are gifted with prophecy or tongues or words of knowledge. Or in today's church, we shouldn't just value the pastor and the elders and the worship leaders. But rather, every member is gifted for ministry. That was chapter 12. Chapter 14, he's going to dig a little bit deeper into the specific gifts of tongues and prophecy, which were causing the most headaches at the church in Corinth. And he's going to tell them how these gifts should be rightly exercised within the worship service and how the worship service should be done decently and in order. That's all coming in chapter 14. But before he can get there, before he can get from everyone is gifted for ministry to Here's how you properly use your gifts in ministry in the worship of the church. He has to stop, because he has to drive home to the Corinthians the most important thing for them to know, and that is love. The thing that the Corinthians were missing was not the most excellent gifts, or the most eloquent wisdom, or the most powerful miracles. The thing that they were missing most was love. Think about it. This is a church that had members taking one another to court, that had some people getting stuffed and drunk at a Lord's Supper feast while other members had not even yet arrived and had not had anything to eat or drink. This is a church where some people were boasting in the superiority of their gifts, emphatically declaring that they were the truly spiritual ones because they spoke in tongues or they did miraculous works. What does a church like this really need? Yes, it does need clear instruction in the truth. The truth of how to properly exercise gifts. The truth of how to treat one another in not taking one another to court. The truth in how to approach the Lord's Supper. But more than this instruction in truth, this church needs to love each other. They need to love one another. And so Paul begins chapter 13 right at the heart of what it means to be spiritual by highlighting the truth that of all the greatest spiritual gifts in the world, all of them are useless without love. So here again is the first three verses of 1 Corinthians 13. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And 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. I am a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal. I am nothing. I gain nothing. That's how important, how vitally necessary love is. Paul begins this section by highlighting what seems to be the Corinthians' favorite spiritual gift, and that is the gift of tongues. So when he starts off, if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, you can almost hear the Corinthians going, yes, he's going to talk about tongues and how great it is, right? Ah, but if I have not love, I'm a noisy gong reclaiming symbol. You know, the gift of tongues has been one that has in the last hundred years or so come up again in the life of the church as being something that's highly controversial, something that's deeply misunderstood, and something that's sought after by many as a sign of true spirituality. There's a movement within Christianity known as Charismatic Christianity, and it's typically marked by people who either speak in tongues or are open to speaking in tongues. And this movement incorporates about 300 million people around the world, or somewhere around 15% of the total Christian population. So it's worth understanding a little bit, since this is where Paul begins by talking about, if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels. The modern charismatic movement in the church is just about a hundred years old. It has its roots in the Azusa Street revivals in the Los Angeles area, which ran from about 1906 to about 1915. One of the phenomena that came up at Azusa Street was the widespread speaking in tongues. which may or may not have been similar to what the Corinthians were experiencing in their worship services. But this tongue speaking gave rise to what became called Pentecostalism. It was called Pentecostalism because the phenomenon of tongue speaking in the Bible first appears on the day of Pentecost. And then as time went on and the movement evolved, it became known as the Charismatic Movement, named for the charismata, the gifts of the Holy Spirit, especially the more spectacular supernatural supposedly supernatural, all gifts of the Holy Spirit are supernatural, whether it's mercy or helping or administrating or teaching, they're all supernatural because they all come from the Holy Spirit. But the more spectacular gifts, right, of tongues and prophecy and healing, those are the ones associated with the charismatic movement. So this Pentecostal charismatic movement has been going on for about a hundred years, and it can be broken down into three waves. Each wave is defined by their understanding of what the gift of tongues means in the life of the Christian and the life of the Church. First Wave Pentecostalism, true Pentecostalism, declares that speaking in tongues is something that every believer can do and should do and is in fact a necessary sign of salvation. So a true Pentecostal would say, you're not saved if you don't speak in tongues because you don't have the Holy Spirit. Second Wave, which is sometimes just called the Charismatic Movement, believes that speaking in tongues is not necessarily the definitive sign of salvation, but it is the sign of being baptized in the Holy Spirit. So they see baptism in the Holy Spirit as a second experience of grace, something that some Christians receive, and the sign of receiving the baptism of the Holy Spirit is that you speak in tongues. So not every believer speaks in tongues, but everyone who has the Holy Spirit speaks in tongues. And so we should all seek after the baptism of the Holy Spirit and the gift of tongues. That's second wave, or what's just called charismatic theology. And then there's third wave, which is sometimes called the neo-charismatic movement, which is more recent in history. And it says that not every Christian is going to speak in tongues. You can be baptized by the Holy Spirit. You can be filled with the Holy Spirit and not speak in tongues. But they do say that some people do speak in tongues. Some believers who are spirit-filled will speak in tongues. Now, when we get to chapter 14, we are going to have to unpack this a little bit more carefully because Paul spends so much time focused in chapter 14 on this particular gift. But right now, I do want to clear up just a few things. First of all, It's important to note that this movement is only about 100 years old, which means it's very new theology. So I have a pretty serious problem with people who say you're not a Christian if you don't speak in tongues, or you haven't been baptized in the Holy Spirit if you don't speak in tongues, because Martin Luther never spoke in tongues, and John Calvin, and Jonathan Edwards, and John Owen, and John Bunyan, and Charles Spurgeon, and all of these people, Dwight L. Moody, all these great pastors, and teachers, and Bible scholars, and Matthew Henry, none of them, none of them had anything to do with tongue speaking. And I would say they're all believers, and I would say they were all baptized with the Holy Spirit. In fact, the Bible teaches us pretty clearly that every true believer in Jesus Christ is baptized in the Holy Spirit. Otherwise, we don't even belong to Christ. You see, it's the Spirit who unites us to Christ in our baptism in the Holy Spirit, which we talked about a couple weeks ago. And so every believer is indwelt by the Holy Spirit, has received the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is the seal given to every believer and the earnest of our eternal inheritance in Christ. The third thing to note is that Paul makes it clear that even in his day, not every Christian was gifted with tongues and that those who speak in tongues were definitely not more spiritual than others who had different gifts. That's the whole point of chapter 12. And then the fourth thing I want to note is that Paul uses the word for languages when he refers to speaking in tongues. So when he says, if I could speak in the tongues of men and of angels, it's actually if I could speak in the languages of men and of angels. It's the word glossolalia, which we get our word glossary from. It's a language, right? A real language. Like on the day of Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit was poured out and the apostles and the others were given the gift of tongues, it was the ability to speak in a way that people who spoke different languages heard them speaking their own language. So these are real languages. And Modern tongue speaking has been studied in depth and has been shown to be non-linguistic. And that is to say, it's not a language. It's better described as ecstatic utterances. And again, we'll discuss this more when we get to chapter 14, but I would say it's doubtful at best that what Paul is describing here and what's observed in charismatic churches today are in fact the same phenomenon at all. Now, Paul says here that even if we could, he's speaking in a hypothetical and a kind of a hyperbole hypothetical, like no one really could, but even if we could write that kind of thing, Paul says, even if we could speak in all the languages of men and even in the languages of the angels, whatever that would sound like. But if we don't have love, we would be nothing but a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. In other words, even being supernaturally gifted in such a wondrous way as this, which no one ever has been, it would only be noisy and empty. There's a lot of ink spilled over exactly what Paul has in mind when he says noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. But the noisy gong is probably a hollow brass that when you sound it, it doesn't sound a very distinct tone. It may have been used to summon people to worship pagan idols, maybe. But I think the meaning of what he says is clear enough. And that is, it's not pleasing to the ear. It's not meaningful. It's not helpful. You can be the most eloquent, best spoken, most gifted orator in the world, but without love, It doesn't help anybody. It doesn't bless anybody. It doesn't build anybody up. Only love makes our words of any real value. And then in verse 2, Paul says, If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but I have not love, I am nothing. Here Paul is naming the other gifts that the Corinthians so highly valued and that is prophetic words of knowledge and works of faith or faith miracles. These are the wisdom and the signs or miraculous powers that are prized by Greeks and Jews that Paul mentioned back in chapter 1. Chapter 1, verse 22 and 23 says, So here it is. If you had all this wisdom, and if you had all these signs, what good would it be? What good would it be to have prophetic insight? Even such prophetic insight that would allow you to understand all mysteries and all knowledge. It might be good with love, but without love, it's no good at all. We live in a time when people are again fascinated with secret knowledge, with knowing the real truth of what's really going on. And this is really nothing new. This is the impulse behind the ancient heresy of Gnosticism in the early church. And it's been the driving force behind all kinds of secret societies and organizations throughout the centuries. Everything from the Knights Templar to the Freemasons to the Church of Scientology to the Mormon Church and others. They're all driven by this idea that we are the keepers of the secret knowledge. We have the real truth, right? Everything's being kept from you. You're being lied to. We have the real truth. Well, Paul says even if the Holy Spirit Even if the Holy Spirit gifted you so that you knew all the behind-the-scenes, real truth and mystery, without love, such prophetic knowledge would be useless. You would be nothing without love and great miracles, great signs and wonders. Boy, how many people over the years have said that they would believe if only they could see some real miracles in their lives. Would you? I'm reminded whenever someone says this or I hear it, I'm reminded that the Exodus generation under Moses and the generation that saw the Lord Jesus Christ are the two generations in scripture that were most blessed by being eyewitnesses of incredible miracles one after another after another and that by and large both of these generations were entirely made up of unbelievers. There were only a few thousand in the generation of Jesus that later came to faith. But really, when he went to the cross, only about 120 believers were left among all the crowds that followed him on the day of Pentecost. And in Moses' generation, it was only Joshua and Caleb who believed. And they saw the parting of the Red Sea, and the striking down of the firstborn, and water from a rock, and manna from heaven, but they didn't believe. Because faith isn't produced by miracles. And you know what? Even if you have faith and even if you have miracles, without love, it's nothing. Paul says, I'm nothing without love. And then in verse 3, Paul says, if I give away all that I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Here Paul reaches even beyond the charismatic gifts and acts of miraculous wonder into these deep, profound acts of self-sacrifice that could be loving, maybe, but without love, you could sacrifice everything you have, even up to and including your own body, and you gain absolutely nothing apart from love. Something else I want to note in these opening verses of 1 Corinthians 13, and that is how dramatically Paul shifts his language. If you just look at the words that he uses and how he shifts his language in these opening verses, he's not talking anymore in the third person. about what believers should do or what the church should be like. He's not talking anymore in the second person, talking to the Corinthians, you Corinthians need to love more. He's not even talking in a first person plural and saying we all ought to love more, but rather he's very personal. And speaking of himself, if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have all 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 that I have and if I deliver up my body to be burned but have not love, I gain You see that? This is important for us to note. We cannot speak about the absolute necessity for love without first thinking and speaking of ourselves. I must love more. I am but a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal in all of my speaking without love if I speak without love. I can know so much and yet be nothing if I do not love. Yes, everyone in the church needs to love more, but I need to be most aware of my need to love more, of how vitally essential it is that I love better than I do. In fact, isn't it really unloving to focus on how much better someone else needs to be at loving, rather than ourselves? And so Paul wants the Corinthians to see how vital love is for them, but he speaks of himself and his absolute need for love in order to do that. Also notice that in these verses, Paul is using this very strong language of what we call hyperbole. He's speaking overly, exaggeratedly about things that are obviously not true of him, could never be true of him, right? Paul does speak in tongues. In chapter 14, he's going to say that he's glad that he speaks in tongues more than any of the Corinthians. And yet Paul could never speak in all of the tongues of men and of angels, could he? And Paul was gifted with great prophetic insight into the mystery of the gospel. But he would never know all mysteries or all knowledge, would he? Paul was used by God to do miraculous things, but he never moved even one mountain into the sea, much less a whole bunch of mountains. Paul did sacrifice much for the cause of the gospel. He left behind a very prestigious position within the Jewish leadership. He probably left behind significant wealth, too, and instead he chose to embrace suffering. And, in the end, he would, in fact, lay down his life. But he hadn't yet. He hadn't yet given up everything. Right. And so he's speaking in this way of of these incredible heights of speaking and knowing and miraculous doing and sacrificing, because he wants to say that no matter how gifted you are, see, the Corinthians are still convinced we just need more spiritual gifts. We just need more, more dramatic spiritual gifts. We need just the better speakers. We just need more wisdom. We just need. And Paul says, no, no, no. All of it, no matter how much you had, It would all be useless without love. Paul's doing something else here, too. In speaking of such hyperbole, he's actually, I believe, drawing our attention to one who did measure up to all of the highest possible standards of greatness in all of these areas, the Lord Jesus Christ. You see, Jesus did speak with greater eloquence than anyone else who has ever lived. He could command demons. He could commune with angels. He did have the greatest knowledge that any human being could ever have. He knew the thoughts of other people. He had the keenest insight into the nature of the things of God and the kingdom of God. He unfolded the word of God with authority that left crowds astonished. And Jesus did the greatest miracles that anyone in history has ever done. He fed 5,000 and he fed 4,000 and he walked on the water and he calmed storms. He healed those who were born blind. He cast out legions of demons. He raised the dead. He ultimately even defeated death itself by his powerful resurrection. And Jesus, Jesus is the one who actually did give up everything he had. He gave up his heavenly glory. He gave up all of his royal privilege. He gave up all of his comfort. He even gave up his fellowship with his father when he went to the cross and became sin for us. In fact, the very expression that Paul uses when he says, I surrender my body to be burned, is actually I surrender my body to boast or to the boast, which for Paul is a very, I think, a very specific word choice. For Paul, he has said, I will boast in nothing but in the cross of the Lord Jesus Christ by which the world was crucified to me and I was crucified to the world. When Paul thinks of boast, he thinks of the cross. And to be burned is a way of talking about a sacrifice being consumed. And Hebrews uses the language of Christ on the cross, offering himself up through the eternal spirit as a way of echoing the sacrifice language on the altar. So I believe that last expression that we have in these first three verses, surrender my body to be burned, is for Paul drawing forth the idea of Christ offering himself up on the cross. And so this hyperbole couldn't accurately describe Paul, couldn't accurately describe any other mere human, but it does seem to be painting a powerful portrait of Christ. And yet, here's the point. Even Jesus... Even Jesus, as powerful and wonderful as he was, would have been nothing and would have gained nothing if What he did had not been done in love. And this is a reminder to the Corinthians and to us that Jesus did in fact do all that he did in love. And that is ultimately what made the work of Jesus so powerful to save us and to bring in the kingdom of God, to redeem us and to glorify God. It's because Jesus did what he did in love. Love for his Father and love for his people. And so this is a powerful reminder to us of two things that we need to remember. First, when God asks us to love one another, admit it, it's sometimes hard. Don't you have people in your life that you find it hard to love? I mean, Jesus tells us we even have to love our enemies. We have to bless those who persecute us. We have to pray for those who hate us. So love must extend to everyone in the world. We have to love one another even as Christ has loved us. Greater love has no one than this that he laid down his life for his friends. You have to love one another in the body of Christ. You have to love your neighbors yourself. You have to love your enemies. You have to love everyone. And so when we are given that command and we think this is hard, we need to remember Jesus loved us first when we were his enemies. when we despised Him, when we esteemed Him not, when we hid our faces from Him. That language of Isaiah 53 should hit us in our heart and we realize Christ loved us. God demonstrates His own love for us in this. While we were yet sinners, Christ died for us, Romans 5.8. So, when God asks us to love one another, it's only after he himself has so deeply and powerfully loved us first. And second, if even Jesus could not accomplish the work that God the Father gave him to do without love, what makes us think we could do what we're called to do without love? Right? If even Jesus needed to do what he was doing in love, how much more vital is it for us to do what we're called to do in love? And when you think about these two truths that come as a necessary consequence of Paul's words, it becomes obvious that what Paul is teaching us here in 1 Corinthians is really the same thing that the Apostle John teaches us in the book of 1 John. And I want to look very quickly, as we draw to a close here, at some words from 1 John that help to amplify and illustrate the point that Paul's making in 1 Corinthians. So we go to 1 John chapter 3, and we read words like this. See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God, and so we are. Or verse 11, for this is the message that we have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another. Or verses 14 to 18, we know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers. Whoever does not love abides in death. Everyone who hates his brother is a murderer, and you know that no murderer has eternal life abiding in him. By this we know, love, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers. But if anyone has this world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk, but in deed and in truth. And then we could go to 1 John chapter 4, verses 7 to 12, and read these words. Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. And this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God. If we love one another, God abides in us and His love is perfected in us. That's some very clear and direct and challenging words from 1 John. And they're words that we need to hear. And they really are spelling out to us the application of what it means to take seriously Paul's charge that you can be as eloquent as the greatest orator ever. Without love, your words are hollow and they help no one. You can do greater miracles than anyone's ever done. You can see things that are true and understand things that are profound. And without love, you would be nothing. You could give everything. You could be the most sacrificial. You could put Mother Teresa to shame with your self-giving, self-emptying sacrifice. But if it's not in love, you gain nothing. Ultimately, Jesus Christ is calling us to, first of all, receive the love that He's given to us. And this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. So if we're going to love, we have to first receive the love that God has given to us, and then we must respond in like love to one another. It's the surest proof that we have received the love of God, that we are willing to extend it to one another. And it is the absolute vital necessity, heartbeat at the middle of everything we do as Christians and as a church, that we love even as He has first loved us. Let's pray. Father in heaven, who are we that you would give your Son? Who are we that you would love us so much that your son would come and leave everything behind to teach us all wisdom and knowledge and insight, to do miracles beyond comprehension, and then to become sin for us on the cross and rise again from the dead. We are nothing in and of ourselves, but we are loved by you. And because you love us, you have made us your own and you have made us holy. Father, stir our hearts to love one another and to love the world around us with the love that you have given to us, that we might love even as we have been loved. For this is what it means to be a child of God above all else. And we pray this, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Let's respond to God's word now by singing together.