Friday. Okay, it's Valentine's Day. If you didn't know, I should have mentioned it more aggressively this morning, but hopefully everybody has figured it out today. But anyway, it's Valentine's Day, so do let those that you love know that you love them. And as I mentioned this morning, I've entitled the message tonight, Love, Love, and Love, because that's what 1 Corinthians 13 is all about. Jesus summarized God's law into two commands. We've talked about this a lot recently. It's really stood out to me One of the scribes came, and having heard them reasoning together and perceiving that he had answered them well, asked him, Which is the first commandment of all? Jesus answered him, the first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God is one Lord, and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength. This is the first commandment. And the second is like, namely this, thou shalt love thy neighbor as thyself. There is none other commandment greater than these. Why? Because all the rest of the law If love were simple, we'd never sin, we'd never transgress the law. Romans 13.10 Love worketh no ill to his neighbor, therefore love is the fulfilling of the law. You want to succeed in life, just love, you know, just love God, just love others. And it's simple until it gets tested, isn't it? And this week, my love was tested a little bit in one particular that I'm thinking about. I love snow and I love snow until I'm out on the same day shoveling the snow twice. We have a corner property, a lot of pavement out there to get shoveled. And I try to I try to keep the you know that area clear and what not and I went out to shovel the second time and I got out there and somebody had taken all the snow from off their car which was about yea deep and put it on the pavement so that my nice pavement, except where the three inches of snow that had also fallen were there, there was about a foot and a half of snow when I got to that section by that car. You know, my first thought was put it back where it came from. The car was still there, but I didn't do that. I took and I cleared it off our pavement. Then I actually cleared around their car and made it real nice around their car. Now hopefully I didn't do that just so that they'd feel guilty when they came out to their car to think oh man we thought it was funny. Now this guy has shamed us and cleaned up around our car and I hope I didn't do it either just so that I could tell the story which I did to my family you know and share you know my great victory in the area of love. You know tonight why do I share My love triumphs because I'm too ashamed to share how often my love fails. and hurting somebody, being selfish with my time, being focused on my interest and what my day is consumed with, not being sympathetic to how somebody else feels and something that they're struggling with and not having sympathy for that, not loving what I should and loving what I should not and the choices of love that I make, despising something because I think I know better. And I know in my pride and whatnot and not lovingly understanding that somebody might have a very valid, better understanding than I have about things. And I mean, that's a short list, but it could be a very, very long list if we enumerated all the areas that I could fail in love or that we could fail in love. And so there are so many ways that we can fail. And so we consider tonight that love ought to be a priority in our Christian life. Love ought to be a priority in our Christian life. And so if that's true, and it is true that love should be a priority, let me ask you tonight, is it something that you're conscious of and that you're working at? Like do you think, you know what, I need to love better and exercise love better. and something that you're striving to succeed at. You know, by God's grace, you know, we can all think, well, that's just the way I am. Or we can look at our life and say, you know, by God's grace, I wanna do better and love the way that I should. All right, so let's pray. Ask the Spirit of God to help us as we come to the word of God tonight. Father, I pray that the Holy Spirit would guide in this time, thank you, Lord, that we've been able to sing these wonderful hymns about love. And Father, thank you that we're loved with everlasting love, led by grace that love to know. Spirit, breathing from above, thou hast taught us, it is so. Oh, this full and perfect peace, oh, this transport all divine. And Father, all that wonderful reality of the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Spirit. We'll see that verse tonight, that that love is something that is God-given. And Father, I pray by your grace that that love would be taken from you and given out to the world, given out to our family, given out to our neighbors that we would love as we ought to love. And Father, please, in every heart tonight, mine included, as we look at the Word of God, may the Spirit of God give us ears to hear. Father, help us to see our shortcomings. And Father, give us grace to change and to mature and to grow in our capacity to love even as our Savior loves. And so tonight, Lord, we just commit this to you. I can't speak without your enablement. We can't listen without your enablement. And so Father, give us ears to hear. Give me grace to preach practically. God, give me grace to preach biblically. God, help me to preach lovingly, even as we'll consider tonight. And by your grace, help me to preach powerfully the truth of the word of God. And Father, may it be life-changing and very helpful to us in our walk with you and our walk with one another. It's in Christ's name we pray. Amen. All right. So love ought to be a priority in our Christian life. And, you know, I want to I want to accomplish something for God with my life. But my first point tonight is that without love, you won't succeed in any spiritual ministry. Okay, if I fail in love, I won't succeed in any spiritual ministry. I think it's commendable for all of our young people in our church to be praying and asking God, God, can I take some college courses, some Bible courses even from a Bible college or something like that and get some real Bible education. But somebody could go to Bible college, somebody could be in those classroom environment and be taught all this information, but if they don't have love, then they will fail to accomplish anything for God. And I hope tonight, again, that in your heart there's a desire to say, you know, I'm a Christian. I'm saved. I want to do something for God. I want to accomplish something for God. But if love is absent, we can accomplish nothing. Kaylee is taking a course called English 102. It's a grammar and composition course. And it reminds me of when I was taking it and I told her about this, that You submit your paper a couple times, and the first time's kind of a draft. It was English 102. I did OK in 101, and I thought, I'm going to do fine here. And I'd written my paper, and I thought it was great until I got it back, and it had a red, I'm pretty sure it was an F. And that's maybe one of the only Fs I remember in college, but it was because of major errors. And if I remember correctly, it had one spelling error and one grammatical error. But those are major errors, and I found out that major errors are really bad, and if you have just a little bit of a major error, it fails your entire paper. You know, the thing about love, as we think about it tonight, if I exclude it, if I don't include it, I could do something so well, and I might think, well, I just excelled in accomplishing this, but if there wasn't love, then nothing was accomplished for God. And so let's look at what Paul emphasizes here. Without love, you won't succeed in any spiritual ministry, and so your speaking is nothing without love. Your speaking is nothing without love. It says in verse one, though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not charity, I become a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal. This is someone that is gifted oratorically. We've enjoyed listening to some of the politicians in different parliaments here, the Senate, the United States, and some of those men can get up and they can speak and they can put a point across, but biblically and in a spiritual ministry, if I had great oratorical skill, but I don't have love, then it's ineffective. It doesn't accomplish anything that it is intended to accomplish. Tonight is Valentine's Day night. A year ago tonight, our family was at Usher Hall enjoying a Valentine's concert, not knowing that COVID-19 was going to make that impossible, you know, for the foreseeable future. And enjoying that atmosphere, you know, it was amazing, the skill level of those musicians as they perform. And the percussionists were excellent. I mean, they had a percussion piece that had instruments in it, but there was a snare drum player that hovered over his snare drum for 20 or 25 minutes, playing faster and faster and faster as that piece went on. And I mean, it's just amazing. And, you know, the cymbals would come in and they'd clang at just the right time. And that was great as long as there was music, it was very moving music. But if you just took that cymbal, and you just took that horn, and you blared the horn, and you clanged the cymbal, that music that was moving would have become moving in a different way, as everybody would have exited out of that place. And we can test that tonight, just as parents, you know, give your kids a pot and a pan, or a horn, and say, go have a great concert for dad, you know, or for mom, and see how long it is that We can endure that. You know tonight, God has given us a message. that the world does not wanna hear. They don't wanna hear it. It is a right message, it is a true message, but to their ears, they're the enemy of Christ. It is an adversarial message. We talked about this morning that repentance is necessary for somebody to come to faith in God. And what attracts them to that message is by the grace of God, the loving spirit with which we present the gospel to them. That's what makes it attractive, otherwise it could just be a clanging symbol. Ephesians 4 says speak the truth in love. We can't succeed in any spiritual ministry without love. Your incredible spiritual gifts are nothing without love. You might have incredible gifts, God-given gifts, but without love, they are nothing. It says in verse two, and though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I can remove mountains and have not charity, I am nothing. In chapter 12 Paul has just spoken about incredible spiritual gifts that God has given. In chapter 12 he speaks about other languages. He speaks about healing people. interpretation of tongues and prophecy of foretelling. At that time, revelatory gifts and apostolic gifts were still active, and these were incredible gifts. And if we were to see them, we'd be amazed. I mean, picture yourself at Pentecost as the Spirit of God gave tongues, and all of a sudden, you're watching a preacher stand up and preach a message in a language that he doesn't know. and he sounds like a native speaker in that language. I mean, that's incredible. And when it comes to spiritual gifts and even gifts that are still active in the church today, gifts that the Spirit of God still gives, those are things that we ought to desire. Paul said in 1 Corinthians 12, verse 31, he says, but covet earnestly the best gifts. There ought to be a desire in your heart tonight to say, by God's grace, whatever gifts God's given to me, I want those to be exercised to their fullest for God. And so when we read about people with great gifts, we might read George Mueller's biography of man of God, that by faith, If God provided for thousands of orphans that came through his orphan homes, it was debt free and God met every need as it came, we ought to be inspired by that and say that's incredible. Look at that man's faith, Hudson Taylor, starting the China Inland Mission, by faith seeing God reach thousands of Chinese. it ought to stir us. And we ought to think, you know what? God, give us some young people like that. God, give us young men and young women that would take a hold of God by faith and see God do incredible things. Or it might be us reading our Bible and reading about Daniel or reading about Joseph and their understanding of dark things, the mysteries, the dreams that have been given and being able to interpret those dreams, that ought to stir us to see the power of God that revealed those secrets unto men. Or it might be Elijah calling down fire from heaven or praying and asking God to send the rain and God sends the rain. Even this past week I think I read about Peter walking on the water to go to Jesus. I mean, we can criticize Peter's faith, but Peter had incredible faith. It just didn't last that long. But I mean, he stepped out, he's walking on the water. Or the three Hebrew children cast into the fire. Daniel in the lion's den. I think that is amazing. Would to God that we had people like that today that could so trust God. Or that had such incredible giftedness. But what Paul is saying is this, even though Paul could say, even though I have all these gifts and I have these abilities, and Paul was a very spiritually gifted man of God. He said this, if I don't have love, I am nothing. We look at those people and we say, that is a great man of God. That is a great person of God. Look at what they did for God. But if it was done without love, Paul says they are nothing. And so tonight, You might think, well, if I just had a greater gift, if I had greater faith, I could be more useful to God. But the greatest thing that we could desire tonight is say, God, help my love to be right, because that's better than great giftedness or great faith or great speaking ability. And so without love, you won't succeed in any spiritual ministry. Your speaking is nothing without love. Incredible spiritual gifts and faith are nothing without love. 3. Your incredible Christian sacrifice is nothing without love. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. In other words, there's no reward. You didn't achieve anything. You did something incredible, but just doing that without love, it is nothing. Again, it's moving to look at the sacrifice of what some have given for God. You look at people like C.T. Studd. C.T. Studd had a great inheritance, a very wealthy family. He himself was a famous cricketer. For 6 years after he got saved he lived as a secret Christian, but then DL Moody came and preached and C.T. decided to take a definite stand for the Lord. When he did that, he decided like the rich young ruler whom Christ said, go and sell all that you have and give it to the poor. He did that. He took of his wealth. He gave it to God's work. He saved a little bit for his wife for a wedding present when they got married. This is at 25 years of age. And he gave it to her. She followed his example and gave what he gave her also away. They started their marriage. with basically nothing but a decision to trust Christ. C.T. Studd said this, Some wish to live within the sound of a church or chapel bell. I want to run a rescue shop within a yard of hell. He said this, If Jesus Christ be God and died for me, then no sacrifice can be too great for me to make for him." And we look at the man and say, hey, you can say that because you sacrificed financially incredibly. Others have sacrificed of their lives. If you go to St. Andrews and you go to the castle that's there and look in the pavement out in front of the castle, you'll see that the letters GW, the initials of George Wishart. And Wishart lived in the 1500s and in 1543, He returned to Scotland, where he preached in Montrose, Dundee, and the West. In 1545, plague broke out in Dundee, and as soon as Wishart heard of it, he went back there, preaching to everyone and caring for the sick. He told them how there was a worse disease than the plague, sin, which could only be healed by the Lord Jesus Christ. Cardinal David Beaton, nephew of the archbishop who had put Patrick Hamilton to death, sent a priest to kill Wishart with a dagger. However, Wishart took the dagger off the priest before defending him from the angry crowd. Wishart survived another attack on his life by beating before finally being arrested near Edinburgh in 1546. By this time, a man called John Knox was following Wishart around as a bodyguard carrying a large two-handed sword. However, Wishart wouldn't let Knox come with him to his trial and execution, He said, one is sufficient for one sacrifice. I mean, you look at men like that, C.T. Studd giving away all his wealth. You look at George Wishart laying down his life, and yet Paul says, if you did that, like sacrificed that greatly, but didn't have love, then it's of no reward. There's no value in that. And so tonight, as we begin our consideration about love, There's not a single spiritual ministry that we can achieve without love. And then secondly tonight, to love is to meet God's standard of love. Love ought to be a priority in our life and our love ought to meet God's standard of love. So a standard is like a measurement that we got to pass. And our family back in 2015, we've had the opportunity to go to Disney World. Somebody provided for us to be able to do that. And I want to say Mac, but it was actually Nelson was only four years old as we had that opportunity. And so we get to those rides and things. And you know what it's like as you go to the roller coaster, there's a sign, you know, whatever it is. It's got a line across it, and that's the standard. And if you meet that standard, you can get on the ride. If you're below that standard, it's tough luck. You can't get on it. And Nelson was kind of a rollercoaster maniac. I mean, he loved it, whatever he wanted to get on it. And so he was disappointed if he got to that and he didn't meet the standard. Tonight, as we come to this text, again, I want to lift up God's standard to us. and consider God's standard and look at our love, because without love we can't succeed in any spiritual ministry and consider, you know, what is the quality of my love? Is my love passing the test of God's standard? And as we look at this tonight, I want to remind us that without God's spirit, Nobody can meet the standard that God has we ought we have to have the spirit of God helping us with our love Galatians 5 22 Says but the fruit of the spirit is love and then it goes on to list the other fruit of the spirit But the first one is love. And so if the spirit of God is filling us the spirit of God is working through us his Evidence is going to be that there's there's going to be love in our life to Timothy 1 7 Romans 5.5 says the love of God is shed abroad in our hearts by the Holy Ghost which is given to us. That's who we need. And so as we look at the standard tonight, you're going to look at it and go, wow, that is a very high standard that God has. And yes, it is. It is achievable, but only by the Spirit of God, God's Spirit helping us to love as we ought to love. And so we're going to go very quickly through basically a long list of God's standard. You can write it down if you want. My notes will be online later if you want to go back and look at the different points, or obviously you've got your Bible. The points are right there in the text. And so to love is to meet God's standard of love. And the first aspect of God's standard is that you must be putting up with it. All right? You must be putting up with it, no matter what it It says, charity suffereth long. Suffereth means to suffer, and we don't like to suffer. Have you ever said the words, I just can't take it anymore? There comes a point where you go, that's too much suffering. I mentioned the road trip that we take out to Colorado that our family would take every year as we'd go on holiday. And it was two days, 16 hours about total drive time to get out to Durango, Colorado, where my dad was from. And I had a older brother and a younger sister, and we were in one row in the car. So somebody's on one side, somebody's in the middle, and somebody's on the other side. And I have no doubt that my parents heard us say, I just can't take it anymore, right? Because somebody crossed the line, that imaginary line that's on the seat that nobody is to reach across. Somebody crossed the line or we've just been in the car too long and it's just, I can't take it anymore. Why do we say that? We say that when our long suffering has ended, right? That's the point, I can't go beyond that. I have suffered too long, so I state it, I can't take this anymore. Do you find yourself saying that towards someone? Or are you putting up with it? Is there somebody that you can think of that you're just, in your heart, you just, I can't take it anymore, or by the grace of God, you can remember, hey, love suffered long. Okay, it's painful, it's hurtful, it's not, something that I enjoy, but love is something that stands even though it suffers. Secondly, you must be kind. You must be kind. It says charity suffereth long and is kind. In that long car ride, it wasn't just that we had to take it, you know, and suffer and grin, you know, the saying grin and bear it. But we had to be charitable. We had to be kind. We had to be gracious to the other person that was there. This word kind is the idea of benevolence. It's characterized by goodwill or expressing goodwill or kindly feeling. You know, I mean, that's that was coming out expresses the fact that I I care about that person. Back when I was a teenager, We had a saying and you might have had the same saying here. I don't know But it was this I feel the love. All right. I don't know if you ever heard that saying I feel the love We'd normally say it after somebody got punched, you know, or somebody is holding their face You know, I feel the love, you know, and obviously it's sarcastic. You don't really feel the love you feel the hate or you feel the anger That's taking place You know, I wonder tonight, as you think about it, do others feel, feel the love around you either way, you know, sarcastically because the unkindness or in reality, they understand that person is kind. That person is gracious, even though, uh, and there's in the heart of somebody that knows they don't deserve love. They're going to sense it's unusual that this person is being kind to me. You must be kind. And then third, you must not be jealous. You must not be jealous. It says, charity envieth not. Envy is the warmth of feeling against jealousy. Are you a competitive person? Most of you, we didn't know back in your youth days, but a lot of us were competitive and played maybe team sports or something like that. As you're coaching a team and you're working with the team, something that you have to teach, especially children, as they're growing up and then teenagers is you got to be a good sport. All right. If you lose the game, you got to be a good sport. You got to go up to that other person and say, hey, you know, well done. You deserve it. You're the champion. You won. And congratulate that other team. Charity envieth not. You know, if someone else receives what you hope to receive, Okay, that could be a promotion at work, that could be the bigger piece of cake, that could be anything, something that you desired, they get it and you didn't get it. Can you, by God's grace, still have affection for that person and not be jealous and not be angry and not be upset? Why do they have that? Why are they succeeding in areas that I desire to succeed? Or can you love them and be excited about what God has allowed them to accomplish or what is going on in their life? You must not be jealous. And then fourth, you must be modest. You must be modest. It says charity vaunteth not itself, okay? It doesn't boast, to vaunt is to boast. You know, why do we boast? Because we want people to know our glory, right? We want people to see what we have achieved or what we have arrived at. I mentioned as we traveled in the states, we carried our instruments. It was fun to go into churches and be able to play the horns and the violin at the different churches that we were at. In one church that we were at in Georgia, I shared that there was a lady sitting next to Kaylee. Kaylee noticed as Kaylee was playing that this lady is very skilled. She's got great ability. She plays very, very well. And it turned out that the lady was a professional violinist. That was her profession. And of course, she was very, very skilled. She could have leaned over to Kaylee as they got started playing and said, by the way, I'm a professional. notice my skill, or something like that. But rather than being like that, afterwards, not only did she not speak about herself, but she, to me, complimented Kaylee's playing and saw what God was doing in Kaylee's life. Do other people that have lesser ability than you might have, lesser skill than you might have, do you have the ability to encourage them? and be a blessing to them and look at the skill level that they have and say, hey, that's great, you're doing well, encouraging them and not trying to put yourself forward with the great abilities that maybe God has given you in a certain area. Charity vaunteth not itself. And then I might get off in my fourth, fifth, sixth, whatever. These are letters to me. And so fifth, or letter E in my notes here, You must not be egotistical, all right? You must not be egotistical. It says, is not puffed up, is not puffed up. And have you seen the Planet Earth DVDs that are out there? And you gotta plug your ears when the evolutional stuff comes out, but incredible videography. It's amazing to look at God's creation and just incredible things. But one of the ones that I love is when they do the birds of paradise. And the birds of paradise, it took them a long time to film these birds, but I mean, these birds just transform. They're like creative transformers. I mean, if you saw it before and after, you'd not think it was the same bird. It's almost like they have lights on them, but they're not lights, but they're fluorescent or whatever the word is, you know, colors and stuff. And it's amazing. They get puffed up, right? And they're drawing attention to themselves. The bird that, maybe we're most familiar like that, is the peacock, right? The peacock, we say things like this, strutting like a peacock, or proud as a peacock. Our family was at Blank Park Zoo in Des Moines, where my parents are, and they've got a pass to that zoo, and so we went a few times to the zoo while we were back and enjoyed that. But there was a white peacock, and it was strutting its stuff there on the path and I mean you couldn't you couldn't get past it without seeing uh its glory it was all fanned out it would have looked a little better if it had all its feathers but I mean it was it was pretty uh glorious and pretty cocky you know about uh what it looked like you know again with this idea of our love do others feel forced to behold our glory? Do they feel like they can't get beyond us letting it be known what we have done or what we've achieved? Love is not puffed up. And then sixth, or letter F, you must be decent. You must be decent. It's the idea of modesty in presentation or speech. It says in verse five, doth not behave itself unseemly. It doesn't behave itself in an unbecoming way, in a way that is, we could say, inappropriate. Whether in word, or dress, or action, it is modest. One of the blessings of going to a Christian university is, generally speaking, the language is good, and it's appropriate, and it's right, and it's wholesome. And I was blessed again to go to a Christian college. But I remember once that there was a young man that said something in mixed company that was totally inappropriate. And I confronted him about it. He came back. Thankfully, he apologized. But I can say this about him. I didn't feel comfortable in his presence. I felt like there was a chance that he would say something that would be immodest or inappropriate. You know, as we think about this tonight, are others comfortable around you because they know that your words, your action or your dress are appropriate. Okay. If there's a, if love is in our life, then what comes out of our lips will be something that is decent or modest. And then letter G, you must not be a selfish. You must not be selfish. It says, seeketh not her own, okay? Seeketh not her own, is not selfish. Matthew Henry's commentary, as you read it, he speaks about, Jesus said, you're to love others as you love yourself. There's a certain amount of self-love that we have, but in speaking about this, he says, we're not to seek our own to another's disadvantage. Even as we seek those things that are needful or things that might be of interest to us, it should not be to the disadvantage of somebody else. In the news in the last couple of weeks on the 27th of January, there was a baby boy found abandoned on the doorstep of a London home. You know, you read about child abandonment and a mother that could take a child and just leave that child. On the 1st of February at a London park there was another baby left at night time 1015 at night, a 30 minute old baby girl shivering in blue found wrapped in a towel in a paper bag. at a park you know and it's sad to read that you think how could how could a mother do that how could a mother treat a child uh that way but obviously that there was a selfishness that took root in the heart of that mother that she could abandon that child again as we think about our love tonight is our Is our life considerate of those that are in it? Are we self-centered and focused on ourself, or is there a desire to meet the needs of those that are about us? You must not be selfish. And then letter H, you must have a long fuse. You must have a long fuse. It says, is not easily provoked. Is not easily provoked. gave you siblings growing up, or if he gave you children, it was to help you with this, right? Because there's something about being a sibling or something about being a child that you just kind of know how to push those buttons just in the right way to provoke somebody. My brother and sister and I, I remember growing up, we'd sing off key, all right? And if I do that now, it's on accident. Back then it was on purpose, and I mean, we could sing just that much off, half step off, and just rating just to see how long it would be till somebody said enough, right? And that's a silly thing. We can push buttons, teasing, you know, and that's kind of fun. But in real life, when our buttons get pushed, if we love people, then we can take it. You think about road rage and road rage deaths, and that's people that had buttons that got pushed and they couldn't take it. We may not run somebody off the road, but in a situation like that, are we somebody that can take it and somebody pushes our button? But by God's grace, we aren't easily provoked. And then continuing on, you must not be suspicious, all right? Love is not suspicious. Again, I know this is a long list tonight, there's not gonna be a quiz at the end, and my goal tonight is not to get us to be able to recite all these things, but to let the standard of God's word look at our love and say, does my love measure up to God's standard? And so thinketh no evil. Barnes notes, says this, that is, puts the best possible construction on the motives and the conduct of others, This expression also is comparative. It means that love, or the person under the influence of love, is not malicious, censorious, disposed to find fault, or to impute improper motives to others. You know, I feel there all the time in these areas. It's a very easy thing for us to look at somebody and to say, I know why you did that, right? I know why you said that. And begin to impugn motives to them that aren't good motives, but bad motives because of how we feel in our heart. Remember King David back when he was just a shepherd boy? His dad said, take some food and go to your brothers. And he gets there, the battle's set in the Valley of Elah. He looks at the Philistine, the Goliath of Gath out there. And in his heart, he says, God is being shamed. I wanna stand up for God's glory. I wanna go out to battle for God's glory. But remember, his older brother Eliab was there. And Eliab didn't respond in love to David's desire to go to battle. It says in 1 Samuel 17, 28, Eliab his eldest brother heard when he spake unto the men, and Eliab's anger was kindled against David. And he said, why camest thou down hither? And with whom hast thou left these few sheep in the wilderness? I know thy pride and the naughtiness of thine heart, for thou art come down that thou mightest see the battle. Okay, Eliab looks at him and he goes, I know your pride, your arrogance, your conceit. I know why you're here. And the thing is, he's not responding in love to David. He ought to look at David and say, David, I love you. I care about you. I really don't know about this thing about going against Goliath or something like that. If he actually cared at all about David, but he didn't love David as he should. And tonight, if there's somebody that I impugn motives to, and I say, I know why they said that, I know why they did that, and it's not good, then that's not love. You must not be suspicious. You must have right appetites, right appetites. It says, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth. So if you love somebody, you don't get excited when they fail, you get excited when they are right with God. Our world says love is tolerance and acceptance. Even our churches are touting this idea of love. And what is love? Love is come as you are, stay as you are, leave as you are. That's fine because God loves you and we love you too. And according to the scripture, the answer is no, because love doesn't rejoice in iniquity. Love rejoices in the truth. We've looked recently at the word of God, what it says about our heavenly father and the way he treats us and takes care of our sin and convicts us of our sin. Hebrews 12 verse six, for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. We know tonight that God loves us, but what does God do? God says, that's not good for your life. So I'm gonna confront that. Even in this text in 1 Corinthians chapter six, Paul, even though he's gonna talk about love in chapter 13 and say all these things about love, he says, deal with the sin that is there in the church, the sin of fornication. And he says to them, you're puffed up and have not rather mourned that he that done this deed might be taken away from among you. For I verily as absent in body, but present in spirit have judged already as though I were present concerning him that had done this deed. in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, when you're gathered together in my spirit with the power of our Lord Jesus Christ to deliver such a one unto Satan for the destruction of the flesh, that the spirit may be saved in the day of the Lord Jesus. And Paul's saying, deal with the sin for the benefit of the person so that they can get right with God so that when Jesus Christ comes back, they are right with God. You know, tonight, if I love my child, that I confront my child's sin, I confront their disobedience, and I rejoice when they do what's right, when they're obeying God, when they're honoring God, when they're pleasing God. Biblically, that is love. And so love has right appetites. And then your love must carry on. Your love must carry on. It says in verse seven, it says, beareth all things. You know, there's no load that's too heavy for love to carry, right? It can sustain it. We might feel like it's gonna break. We might feel like I can't endure this, but if it's love, it's gonna sustain it. There was a famous war slogan in Britain, and you can probably name it, but it's keep calm and carry on, right? Back from World War II. And it was basically the idea that we're probably gonna get bombed, there's gonna be civilian casualties, but carry on, right? Carry on with life. Act as if this isn't taking place and just continue. You know, tonight, does your love carry on? No matter what threatens it, is it strong to say, you know what, I'm just gonna keep loving? I'm just gonna, I'm gonna bear that. I'm gonna bear that up because of love. You know, as we think about that tonight, you think about Jesus, as he went to the cross for our sin, as he suffered, as he took our sin on him, as he faced the world for us, and all the things that he went through, his love never failed. His love bore up everything. Your love must carry on. And then you must be trusting. In saying that, it's not that love is naive, it's not that love is ignorant, it's not that love doesn't understand what's happening, but it's that love is optimistic about others' intent. rather than pessimistic, all right? So love is positive. Love thinks, you know what? I'm gonna think about this positively. Because you think about Jesus and the betrayal of Judas. Was he aware? He that suppeth with me is gonna betray me, he said. When Judas came, he knew what it was about. And yet you remember in Matthew 26, verse 50, Jesus said unto him, friend, Wherefore art thou come? Then they came and laid hands on Jesus and took him. But think about that. Jesus was optimistic with Judas. Friend, wherefore art thou come? He didn't condemn him. He didn't speak down to him. There was still an affection in the heart of the Lord Jesus for Judas. You know, tonight, do you give the benefit of the doubt to others? Are you optimistic in your affection for them? Whether it is good or bad, we live in the days of Hollywood. time period in which we live and thankfully there's some good old stuff that you can watch and our family enjoys watching the old black and white western movies but the great thing about a black and white western is that you know it's it's gonna be okay right it's gonna work out the bad guys gonna get caught and you know the good guys gonna succeed it's called a what it's called a happy ending. And that's what we desire, you know, to see in moviegoers. They want to see a happy ending. But you know what? Life doesn't always end up happy. That's just the reality, isn't it? I mean, life, sometimes it throws a curveball. Sometimes it's really, really tough. But when you love someone, you always anticipate a happy ending. Does that make sense? It may not always be a happy ending, but when you love someone, you anticipate a happy ending. It's like this, an unloving parent could condemn a child and say, you know what? You're never gonna succeed, right? It's never gonna happen. You're always gonna be this way. But if it's loving, it's like, you can succeed. You can get beyond this. You can overcome. And there is a hope with all things because I love you and I care about you and I wanna see you succeed. You must be optimistic. And then lastly, okay, we made it. I know it's a long list tonight and don't worry, we're not going beyond verse eight here, but you must overcome everything. So if to this point, as you listen to this tonight, you think, you know, I've got that, I've got that, I've got that, I've got that. Then this is the summary. You must overcome everything because it says endureth all things. Endureth all things. That's why Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew chapter five, he could say this in verse 43. You have heard that it hath been said, thou shalt love thy neighbor and hate thine enemy. But I say unto you, love your enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you. and pray for them which despitefully use you and persecute you. That ye may be the children of your father which is in heaven. For he maketh his son to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust. For if ye love them which love you, what reward have ye? Do not even the publicans the same? And if you salute your brethren only, what do ye more than others? Do not even the publicans so? Be ye therefore perfect, even as your father which is in heaven is perfect. God does not want us tonight to love like the world. He doesn't want us to meet the standard of what the world thinks. God has a much higher standard that goes beyond loving somebody that is loving towards me to loving somebody no matter what they're like, no matter what has taken place. So as we look at that standard tonight, I think in all of our hearts I hope There's a realization, you know what? I fail a lot in the area of love. I don't love often times. I don't love like I should. And that awareness to say, you know what, God? I really need your help to love as I ought to love. Because the reality is this. As soon as the message is over, or even before it's over, our love is going to be tested. Somebody's going to dump snow on our pavement. Somebody's going to do something that we're going to have to decide, are we going to respond in love? And so if I don't love like I should, my Christian speech is going to be repulsive. I'm going to be nothing for God. I'm going to have no reward. I mean, we can't do anything for God. And so tonight, as we think about that, in our hearts, would you be willing to admit to God, you know, I failed in some areas of love? And as Pastor was talking through it tonight, God, it was this. It was this, you know, this area of love, I'm deficient in this area. God, will you help me to love as I ought to love? Are you willing to ask God, God, show me my shortcomings in love? Show me areas where I fail to love as I ought to love. And will you think about this this week and just say to God, God, by your spirit, help me to love like I should. And as I've worked on this message this week, it's been in my heart and mind this week. So I've had ample opportunity to be reminded, you know what, I fail in love. God, help me to love as I ought to love. 1 Corinthians 13 is love, love, and love. And it's the greatest thing. It's eternal. And may God help us to love as we ought to love. All right, let's pray. Father, thank you for the word of God tonight. Thank you for the truths that we've considered. And Father, I pray that the spirit of God would turn the searchlight of the word of God into our hearts and give us grace to look at it and say, you know what? I failed so many ways in areas of love. And Father, I pray that the Holy Spirit would give us grace to love as we ought to love. And Father, I pray for success. I pray for each one. Lord, give them grace to love everybody, to respond in loving ways. Father, to love as we ought to love, to better demonstrate Christ to others that they'd see the love of Christ in us. Not a love like the world has, but a love that's like the love of the Lord Jesus. And Father, help us this week to be reminded of this message. It's in Christ's name we pray, amen.