Well, we're going to turn our attention now to God's Holy Word. We're in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, and we are continuing with our portrait of love in action by continuing to take a look at this middle section of 1 Corinthians 13 in verses 4 through 8a. And today we're going to be looking in particular at verses 6, 7, and the beginning of verse 8. But let's read God's Word together here from 1 Corinthians 13. 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 with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. Amen. Let's pray. Heavenly Father, your word is living and active, sharper than any two-edged sword. Your word is breathed out from your very lips by your Holy Spirit. written on the page through the pen of the Apostle. Would you now write it on our hearts, Father? Would you prepare us to hear it, to believe it, to treasure it, to understand it, and to respond in faith to it? We pray this, Father, in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Well, one of my favorite professors from graduate school, I did my Master's in Educational Leadership at Covenant College. And the Educational Department Chair at Covenant is Dr. Jim Drexler. He was one of my favorite professors, really great guy, just very warm. He lived, Covenant College sits at the top of Lookout Mountain, Georgia, and so you have to go up this very tall, windy mountain to get to the campus. It's this beautiful campus, it overlooks the valley, and it's just the most stunning place to see sunrises and sunsets. But Dr. Jim Drexler and his wife lived at the bottom of Lookout Mountain, right at the base. And they had a wonderful home, and they were very hospitable, and they invited us into their home to share a meal with us. One of the great stories that Jim told in class and repeatedly was of his pursuit of his wife during their days when they were undergraduates together at Covenant College. When they first met, she was dating someone else and she wasn't really all that interested in him, but he pursued her. And sort of relentlessly, at times almost annoyingly, pursued her because he loved her and he wanted to have her. And so eventually that relationship that she was in ended and she became available and Jim kept pursuing until finally she relented and went out. on a date with him, and the rest, as they say, is history. Love, in Jim's case, took the initiative, took the initiative to pursue the Beloved, and their relationship was started by that catalyst of love. Our whole approach to God and the Christian life and the gospel and the understanding of what it means to be a Christian, our whole approach is shaped in so much large measure by whether or not we believe that our relationship with God began with His love pursuing us or whether or not it began with our love pursuing Him. Now, I want to be careful here. Because you can't push that analogy too far. In Greek, there are actually four different words for love that are translated love. We just have the word love. English is a really weird language that we only have the one word love. Because I can say, you know, I love the Sixers. You know, or I love, you know, coffee. Or I love my wife. Or I love my kids. Or, you know, I love that movie. And I say, I love Jesus. Well, that's kind of confusing. I mean, Greek has four different languages, four different words that it uses in its language to talk about love. And when Jim Drexler is telling his story of pursuing his future wife, he's talking about a particular kind of love that uses the Greek word eros to describe it. We get the root word for erotic, right? It's romantic love. It's a passionate love. And C.S. Lewis, in his masterful book, The Four Loves, talks about these four different types of love. And he talks about how Eros is an example of need love. Why do we pursue someone in romance? We pursue someone in romance because we need something they have. We perceive. that our life is incomplete without them and we need to have them in our lives. That's how Jim felt when he was pursuing his future wife. He needed to have her in his life. God doesn't need us. God's love for us that is first and does initiate is not eros, okay? There's another word, phileo. The city of Philadelphia gets its name from that, the city of brotherly love. Phileo is a brotherly love, a sort of camaraderie, right? There's another word, storge, for love. And then there's a word that's rarely used in Greek. For a long time, people said, well, it's a uniquely Christian concept of love. It's not. But it's only very rarely used in secular Greek literature. And it's used throughout the whole Bible. And that is agape love. And agape love, Lewis describes as being gift love. It is purely giving of oneself for the good of the other. And that is very clearly, it is the word that's used in 1 Corinthians 13, agape. But these verses that we've been looking at here in 1 Corinthians 13 verses 4 through 8a are very much a portrait of agape love in action. And agape love is something that is reflective of the character of God. When the Bible says God is love, it's God is agape. It's not that God is eros or God is phileo or God is storge. It's that God is agape, this self-giving, initiating, others-centered, seeking-the-good-of-the-other kind of love. And with that kind of love in mind, 1 John 4, 19 tells us, we love Because He first loved us. Right? We love because He first loved us. And what kind of love is this agape love? Well, one chapter before, in 1 John 3, verse 1, tells us, see what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God, and so we are. God calls us his children, and by his authoritative and effectual word, we are his children. He does this by uniting us to Christ, who is the rightful Son of God, and adopting us in Christ. It is thus the love of God that is first, and we love because he first loved us. It is this love that Jesus extends to us when he invites us with those wonderful words from Matthew 11, come to me. all you who labor and are heavy laden and i will give you rest take my yoke upon you and learn from me for i am gentle and lowly in heart and you will find rest for your souls for my yoke is easy and my burden is light that's the kind of love that that initiates with us, that engages with us. And then in John 15, Jesus connects this love that he extends to us with our call to love one another. He says, No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master is doing, but I have called you friends. Now he's extending to us phileo love in addition to agape love. For all that I have heard from my father I have made known to you. You did not choose me, but I chose you. You did not choose me, but I chose you and appointed you that you should go and bear fruit and that your fruit should abide and that whatever you ask the Father in my name, he may give it to you. These things I command you so that you will love one another." So you see the connection from I chose you Right? I appointed you that you may love one another. Why am I sharing all these verses at the opening of this message? Well, because there's two very clear reasons. We talked about this last week, but I just want to make sure we get this back in our minds very clearly. 1 Corinthians 13 is first and foremost a portrait of Christ and his love for us before it is a call for us to love. It is both. It certainly does challenge us about our lack of love, but it is first a portrait of Christ and his love for us, and putting it in the primary position to say this is a portrait of Christ's love in action is absolutely necessary so that we get what's first and what's second, what initiates and what follows in proper order. And the second thing is, when we look at the description of love that's unfolded in verses 4 through 8a, We should be struck by something. Everything that love does and is, is in some way characterized by selflessness. Love is patient, long-suffering, long-tempered. Love is kind. rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things. Everything that love is positively is selfless. And everything that love is not, everything we're told that love does not do, are things that are selfish. Love does not envy or boast. Love is not arrogant or rude. Love does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful. It doesn't rejoice at wrongdoing. All of those are selfish things that we can do, and that's not what love is. And so last week we talked about the struggle because of how absurd it is for us to be able to put our names in the place of love. It would be ridiculous for me to say, Jason is patient and kind. Jason is not arrogant or rude. It's just like, that's just, no, that's not right, right? Well, why is it that we feel this profound gap chasm, really, between who we are and how we're living our lives and what 1 Corinthians 13 tells us is the picture of love. Well, the obstacle is us. The problem is that we're too selfish, right? And so, as we allow Christ's love to take the initiative, and we follow after His love that is primary, In following after, what we find out is that if we're ever going to grow in being more like His love, we've got to be less selfish. We've got to die to self. And so when we understand this, we can go back to the Gospels and we can hear the words of Jesus saying, if anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. And realize that that's actually the same invitation as when Jesus says, come to me all who labor and are heavy laden and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart. One of these sounds harsher and more challenging. The other sounds gentler and more loving. But they're actually both the same call. And that is the path to rest in Christ. Is to embrace His love. and lay down ourselves, we must decrease, he must increase, and that this is both a rebuke to us for being so stinking selfish, frankly, and it's also a gracious invitation to us for freedom and life. It is what we are invited to out of love. Because it is what sets us free from what is most hindering us. And that is ourselves. We'll come back to that at the end of the message. So with that introduction, let's continue exploring this powerful portrait of love in action. Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. Last week I shared Anthony Thistleton's excellent translation of this passage, and so here's how he translates this particular section. Love does not take pleasure at wrongdoing, but joyfully celebrates truth. It never tires of support, never loses faith, never exhausts hope, never gives up. Love never falls apart. You know, you can tell what a person really values by what makes them most happy or most upset. Today is Super Bowl Sunday, right? It is the great American national holiday. We are kind of a sports-obsessed culture, and I know some of you are like, I don't care a thing about sports, but I'm talking as a culture, we tend to really get wrapped up around sports or politics or something like that. And you can often tell what a person values most by what really makes them most happy. And some people I know are the most happy when their team wins, and they're the most upset when their team loses. And, you know, you can tell how important their team is to them, right? So let's ask this question, then. What brings love, joy, or pleasure? What causes love to rejoice? And what does not cause love to rejoice? Well, we're told love does not rejoice in unrighteousness, is the most literal translation of that word. Love does not rejoice in unrighteousness or wrongdoing, but it does rejoice in the truth. Love joyfully celebrates the truth. If we look at the life of Jesus, we can see this very clearly. When was Jesus the least joyful? What time in his life when he was least rejoicing, least happy? Well, the incident that comes to my mind is the cleansing of the temple, right? He was definitely not rejoicing because it was wrongdoing that was going on at the temple. You had the people who were in charge of the worship of God who were using their position of power to set up a bazaar, a marketplace, where they would sell spotless animals. But to buy the spotless animal, you had to have the temple coin. And so there were money changers that would exchange your money for the temple coin. And so they had an exclusive monopoly on both of these operations, changing money and selling animals. So you got whatever exchange rate they felt like giving you. and then you had to buy their animal because their animal was pre-certified by the priest to be spotless. This is obvious wicked corruption and it stirred up Jesus' righteous anger as he saw in this scene the intersection of three wrongs that struck his heart of love. First, God's worship was being defiled. Second, God's people were being exploited or fleeced. And third, the Gentile nations were being prevented from coming to and worshiping God. And so Jesus overturns the tables of the money changers. He makes a whip out of cords and he drives out the animals so that they're gone out of the temple courtyard. Because where they were was in the outer court, which is the court of the Gentiles. And that's where the nations were supposed to come. and learn about God and be able to observe the worship of God and hear from the priests about the law of God. And as Jesus does this, Mark 11 17 tells us Jesus said, Jesus did not rejoice at wrongdoing or at calamity, but if we're honest, It is a real temptation for us to rejoice at wrongdoing or at calamity, although we would be reluctant to admit it, of course. But, you know, certain television shows are popular for a reason. Yesterday I was working out at the gym and they were showing one of those stupid criminal shows. You ever seen one of those? You know, for some reason I couldn't look away, right? It's one of those shows. They get these hidden video security footage of criminals doing stupid things and people come on and laugh at the criminals and analyze the videos. And what is that? It's rejoicing and it's being entertained by wrongdoing. By unrighteousness. How many talk shows or courtroom drama shows are popular because they put wrongdoing on display for the entertainment of others? And boy, don't even get me started on The Bachelor. or other shows like that, which encourage women, primarily, to fantasize over sexual immorality of the grossest kind. We can be tempted to rejoice, to be entertained, to be amused by wrongdoing. But we can also be tempted to rejoice when some wrongdoing happens to our enemies. When they suffer harm, when they sort of get what they deserve, right? But Jesus didn't do this either. In fact, He wept over Jerusalem, even though they rejected him and would ultimately crucify him. In Matthew 23, it's just a couple of days before Jesus' crucifixion, and he laments over the city. Oh, Jerusalem, Jerusalem, the city that kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to it. How often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her brood under her wings? And you were not willing. That is not rejoicing at the wrongdoing of the city, it's lamenting over it. And then in Luke 23, a few days later as Jesus was walking toward Golgotha, We read that he's being followed by a great multitude of people and of women who are mourning and lamenting for him. But Jesus turns to them and says, What will happen when it is dry? What was Jesus doing here? He's foreseeing the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, when the whole city would be laid waste. And he's telling the daughters of Jerusalem, don't weep for me, weep for yourselves. Jesus is refusing to rejoice. even at the just and well-deserved downfall of his enemies. He predicted the downfall of Jerusalem. He foresaw it clearly, but he never rejoiced over it. So what then did make Jesus rejoice? What did make him happy? Luke 10.21 tells us of a time when Jesus rejoiced. It says, In that hour he rejoiced in the Holy Spirit and said, I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for such was your gracious mercy. He rejoiced. He rejoiced at the truth being revealed to his disciples. These were the 72 disciples that he sent out to go and minister throughout Israel. Now, right before he said this, he told those 72 disciples that he had sent out not to rejoice over the power they had over demons, but he says, Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this, that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven." So he's rejoicing that the truth has been revealed to these disciples of his. He's telling them to rejoice that they have had the truth revealed to them in such a way that their names are written in heaven. And this is perfectly in keeping with what we read a few chapters later in Luke 15, when Jesus says, And finally, we see this same cause of joy reflected in the heart of an aging apostle, the Apostle John in 3 John verse 4, when he says, Love rejoices in the truth. particularly in seeing a sinner who is in ignorance and darkness of unbelief and not knowing the truth of God come to have the light of the truth shine in their hearts and they come to know the truth. That's the greatest joy. And then John says, oh, it gives me no greater joy than to hear that my children are walking in the truth. to rejoice in that way and then to be saddened most by wrongdoing, especially wrongdoing that robs glory from God, that corrupts his worship, that exploits his people, that hurts others. So it's important that love rejoices in the truth and not in wrongdoing. Next we're going to take on love bears all things and endures all things. We're going to put those two together. What's the most difficult thing that you've ever had to endure? That you've ever had to bear up under? I know this past year has brought a number of challenges to many of us. The isolation, the loneliness, the interruption to the normalcy of life, kids doing virtual school at home all day, day after day, disagreements over COVID, disagreements over politics, family fighting, conflict, loss of loved ones. A couple of families within our church have lost loved ones just in the past couple of weeks. Hospitalizations that are scary about what the outcome might be. These things are hard, right? They're hard to bear up under. Some of you I know have been through cancer and chemotherapy. Others of you have dealt with very difficult marriages that led to separation or divorce. Some of you have lost parents or children or siblings. Jesus is called the man of sorrows who is acquainted with grief. He endured so much during his time on earth. And of course we think about the cross, but there's a lot that led up to the cross too. I remember two years ago when I lost my mom, that was one of the hardest things I've had to endure. Well, Jesus lost his earthly father, Joseph, sometime before his 30th birthday, because by the time Jesus is 30 and is baptized by John the Baptist, Joseph is no longer in the scene. He's died already by that time. Jesus was rejected. by the Jewish leadership of all kinds in his day, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the Scribes, the Herodians, just about every major political and religious group in Israel, they all despised and rejected Jesus. He wept at the tomb of Lazarus. He was misunderstood and abandoned by most of those who chose to follow him. He was betrayed by one of his closest followers who sold him out for 30 pieces of silver. And he was denied three times by probably his very closest follower, who pledged to stand with him even unto the grave. And yet all of this, all of this, doesn't even compare with the agony that he suffered. from the garden of Gethsemane through his death on the cross as he became sin for us and he bore the wrath of God in our place. It was such a fearful prospect that he was in agony in the garden of Gethsemane praying, Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will, but your will be done. There is love. patiently enduring. There is love seeking not its own. There is love accepting and bearing all things. And as he prayed this, his agony was so intense that he's sweating drops of blood from his brow. The agony that gripped him so tightly was the prospect of being made sin for us. Hebrews 12 speaks of what Christ endured on the cross and why he endured it. He says in Hebrews 12, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith, who, for the joy that was set before him, endured the cross, despising the shame. and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted." That's Hebrews 12, 1-3. He endured. It says twice. He endured the cross, and he endured from sinners such hostility from himself. And why? For the joy that was set before him. So there's a connection here that's vital for us to see. Love Right? Love causes us to rejoice in the truth. It gives us joy at living in the truth, walking according to the truth, pleasing God, who is the truth. Right? And that joy gives us strength to endure all things in the name of love, out of love. Jesus had the joy of glorifying his Father that was set before him. He knew he would get to a point where he said, it is finished, into your hands I commit my spirit, and he would have such joy at glorifying his Father, accomplishing the plan of redemption that was from before the foundation of the world. But he also had the joy of accomplishing this redemption for his own people, of seeing his own beloved ones forgiven and freed and walking in the truth of salvation. We're called to endure too. You and I are called to consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted." That means we're called to endure too. And we can only do that by looking to Jesus. Looking to Jesus, the founder and perfecter of our faith. That's the only way we're going to have the fuel for endurance is love. The love of Jesus for us and looking to him in love enables us. to follow in his footsteps and bear all things and endure all things." Now, this section has two phrases back-to-back that are a little bit confusing, so that's what we're going to look at next. It says, "...love believes all things and hopes all things." Now, what does that mean exactly? It can be a little bit puzzling, right? One way you could look at that is to say, well, It kind of sounds like love is pretty gullible and kind of prone to wishful thinking because it's going to believe anything. Like love has to believe anything that anybody tells it. Or love has to hope for anything, no matter what, right? Well, I don't think that's the best way to read this, because that's totally not in keeping with the character of God or Jesus or the scriptures. So what does it mean? Well, another way to read this word all is not as all things, but as all ways. It's the same word all that could be translated either way. It believes all, it hopes all, it could be all things or it could be all ways, like at all times. And that's kind of reflected in Anthony Thistleton's translation, which is, love never loses faith, never exhausts hope. So no matter what happens, no matter what difficulties come, love never loses faith or hope. And I think we see this most powerfully with Jesus in his final prayer. On the night he was betrayed, his prayer in the upper room that we call the high priestly prayer. And then his final words on the cross. So his final prayer in the upper room and his final words on the cross show us that no matter what came, he continued to believe. And he continued to hope. Here's what he prays in John 17. Father, the hour has come. Glorify your Son, that the Son may glorify you, since you have given him authority over all flesh to give eternal life to all whom you have given him. And this is eternal life, that they may know you, the one true God and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I had with you before the world existed." Man, that is powerful faith and hope in such a perilous time. Jesus is just hours away from the agony in the garden. He's just a day away from the excruciating, we even invented a word for it, excruciating out of the cross, the excruciating agony of the crucifixion. And here he is expressing his trust that the Father's plan is in fact unfolding exactly as it should, that he would indeed be glorified, that he would be welcomed back into the glory which he had with the Father before the world began, and that through his self-sacrifice we would come to know eternal life. And speaking of we coming to know, later on in that prayer, Jesus prays specifically for us. Did you know that? Did you know that John 17 records you and me and Jesus praying specifically for us? It's in John chapter 17, verse 20, when Jesus says, I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in me through their word. That's us. We have believed in Jesus through the word of the apostles, right? And what does he pray? That they may all be one, just as you father are in me and I in you, that they also may be in us so that the world may believe that you sent me. The glory that you have given me, I have given them, that they may be one even as we are one, I in them and you in me, that they may be perfectly one so that the world may know that you sent me and loved me even as you loved, sorry, loved them even as you've loved me. Father, I desire that they also whom you've given me may be with me where I am to see my glory that you've given me because you loved me before the foundation of the world. What's Jesus praying for here? He's praying for the perfect spiritual unity of his people. That we would be one, even as the Father and Jesus are one. Let me tell you, it takes a lot of hope to pray that prayer. Even today, it takes a lot of hope to pray that prayer. That the people of God would be one, even as the Father and the Son are one? Man, it seems like we will argue and divide over anything. When I was at Covenant College, I had a friend, a classmate who was from Tennessee, and he was part of a small church there, and the church that he grew up in literally split because they were redoing the sanctuary, and there was a group of people in the sanctuary who insisted that the carpet had to be Tennessee Volunteer Orange. And of course the rest of the church was shocked at that and thought, no, this is the house of God, and that's kind of, you know, really bright and very particular to a college, and it doesn't seem right for a worship space. And those people left and formed their own church, and they got their Tennessee orange carpet. Like, Christians will split over anything, and be offended by anything, and yet Jesus is praying for us to be one. And you know that prayer is going to be answered? Jesus hopes through it all, and His hope is not unfounded because God the Father has promised it, and so that prayer will be answered. Wouldn't it be great if we displayed the reality of the coming answer to that prayer more in this life? Well, Jesus' faith and hope wasn't just strong in the upper room. It remained. It endured all things. It bared up under all things. It was strong all the way to the end, and we can hear it in His very final words on the cross. It is finished, in John 19.30, and into your hands I commit my spirit, Luke 23.46. It is finished. He knew, by faith, that he had finished the work the Father had given him to do. The price for our sin had been paid in full. And then in hope, he said, into your hands I commit my spirit. Those final words of Jesus are actually a quote from Psalm 31 5, which says, into your hands I commit my spirit. You have redeemed me, O Lord, faithful God. And actually, part of what's in Jesus' mind when he quotes that, that you have redeemed me, is actually speaking of the resurrection. That God the Father says, into your hands I commit my spirit because I know that you're going to raise me from the dead. That's hope. You see, it is finished is faith. That I know, I believe that I've done everything you've asked me to do. And the price is paid in full. And into your hands I commit my spirit is hope that I can trust you, Father. You will raise me from the dead. faith and hope that persevere to the end, that persevere to the end. Do you know that because Jesus held on to his faith and hope in his Father through to the end and even through the end into life again, we too can have that persevering faith and hope. We too can have the promise that God's love will be with us always and will be never separated from it. And we don't need to fear anything. We can endure all things. We can bear all things. We can hope through all things. We can have faith through all things because, because of the love of God for us. Love how Romans 8 ends. You guys know Romans 8 is one of my favorite chapters of the Bible, probably just is my favorite chapter of the Bible. And it ends this way. What shall we say to these things? And these things refers to all the troubles and problems of life, right? all the suffering of this present age, what shall we say to these things? Well, if God is for us... Who can be against us? That's what we can say. If God is for us, who can be against us? He who did not spare his own son, but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things? Who shall bring any charge against God's elect? It is God who justifies. Who is to condemn? Christ Jesus is the one who died. More than that, who was raised, who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us. Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword? As it is written, for your sake we are being killed all the day long. We are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered. No! In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us. For I am sure that neither death nor life nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord." How can we possibly think... Let's get realistic for a minute. How can we possibly think that we could ever Endure all things. Bear all things. Hope through all things. Have faith through all things. Well Romans 8 just told us how. It's because the love of God holds us through all things, and because nothing can ever separate us from his love, and no one can ever bring a charge against us because of his love. That's again, it's so important that we understand that Romans 13, yes, it's a call for us to love, but it's a portrait of God's love for us first. The final thing Paul says about love. is that it never fails. That is, it never falls down, never collapses, and never comes under condemnation. All that is sort of wrapped up in this idea that it never fails. And here we see the glorious truth that after Jesus was crushed for our iniquities, he rose again from the dead and lives forevermore, never to die again. On the day of Pentecost, Peter preached, men of Israel, hear these words. Jesus of Nazareth, a man attested to you by God with mighty works and wonders and signs that God did through him in your midst, as you yourselves know, this Jesus delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed by the hands of lawless men. God raised him up. loosing the pangs of death because it was not possible for him to be held by it. That's Acts 2 22 to 24. This resurrected Jesus. It was not possible for him to be held by death. He didn't fall down. He wasn't crushed. He rose again, never to die again. He rose again unconquerable. undefeated and undefeatable. His love, unfailing, unfalling, is the love to anchor our souls through every storm of life, no matter what comes. Having seen this powerful portrait of love in action, maybe your heart, like mine, is stirred by your need to love more like this. I mean, there's this wonderful joy of knowing that Jesus loves us this much. This is our hope. This is our salvation. The love of Christ for us. Not our love for him, but his love for us is the hope and the joy of our salvation. But we also know that we are called to love. And as much as Jesus loves us, we know that we don't do a very good job of loving him in return and loving others in his name. Jesus is perfect love. Love incarnate, the perfect embodiment of the love of God. But we're also made in God's image. You and I are made in the image of God. That means we're made to reflect the character of God. And we're redeemed by love for love. So we are called to love. And we've seen, last week we looked at the fact that this is what God predestined us for. To be conformed to the image of his Son. So, if it's God's plan and purpose for us, How can we pursue it? How can we grow in love? Well, we have to begin by acknowledging the problem. We've already talked about this. I talked about the beginning of the message. The problem is us. Our love of self. It crowds out our love of God and our love of others. Our culture. Our culture is drunk on the false gospel of self-love. It's ridiculous. People say things like, accept yourself, love yourself, and keep moving forward, and like, love yourself first, and everything else falls into line. But the truth is, and we know it, our self-love is narrow, it's hard, it's selfish, it's impatient, it's proud, it's rude. It's in fact all of the things that 1 Corinthians 13 tells us that love is not. John Calvin in complete Opposite contrast to our culture's false gospel of self-love, John Calvin says, for as the surest source of destruction to men is to obey themselves... How'd that go over in our culture? What's your surest source of destruction? Just follow your own heart. That's the surest path to destruction. For as the surest source of destruction to men is to obey themselves, so the only haven of safety is to have no other will, no other wisdom, than to follow the Lord wherever he leads. So if the problem is us, and the need is to follow the will of God, the love of God, how do we do it? Let me get very practical by laying down two key principles as our closing thought together this morning. First, we become more like what we worship. The Bible tells us that. And what we worship? is not what we say we worship, but what we actually worship. What we regard as most worthy, most glorious, most valuable, most deserving of our attention and affection is probably the same thing that fills our hearts with the greatest joy or the greatest sorrow. That is what we truly worship. And the Bible tells us that we become more and more like what we worship. The second thing we need to see is that the only thing that can expel an affection from our hearts is a new and stronger affection. Thomas Chalmers called this the expulsive power of a new affection. In a sermon that he preached about 200 years ago, Chalmers said, the love of the world cannot be expunged by a mere demonstration of the world's worthlessness. But may it not be supplanted by the love of that which is more worthy than itself? That's the key, right? You can't just say, oh, this is bad. You got to stop doing that. It's terrible. That's not going to help you get over it. What helps you get over it is a more powerful love, a love of something that is more worthy. Of course, it's not just Thomas Chalmers who said this. in the early 1800s, but 1800 years before Thomas Chalmers, the Apostle Paul demonstrated powerfully the expulsive power of a new affection in Philippians 3. If you do have a Bible, I would invite you to turn to Philippians 3 with me. This is a powerful passage that I want to encourage you to meditate on this afternoon. Maybe talk through it with your family and pray through it together. Philippians 3. Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. You see the connection Paul makes there between joy and worship? What we worship is that which brings us the greatest joy. So the command is to rejoice in the Lord. Finally, my brothers, rejoice in the Lord. To write the same things to you is no trouble to me, and it is safe for you. Look out for the dogs, look out for the evildoers, look out for those who mutilate the flesh, for we are the circumcision who worship by the Spirit of God and glory in Christ Jesus, and put no confidence in the flesh. Though I myself have reason for the confidence in the flesh also, if anyone else thinks he has reason for confidence in the flesh, I have more. Circumcised on the eighth day of the people of Israel, of the tribe of Benjamin, a Hebrew of the Hebrews, as to the law, a Pharisee, as to the zeal, a persecutor of the church, as to righteousness under the law, blameless. But, verse 7, But whatever gain I had, I counted as loss for the sake of Christ. Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake, I have suffered the loss of all things, and I count them as rubbish in order that I may gain Christ. and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith, that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and may share in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death, that by any means possible I may attain the resurrection from the dead. Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own. Listen, verse 12. I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus had made me his own. I press on to make it my own because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. Paul knew he wasn't perfect in love yet, but one thing I do, forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. We see in this passage so powerfully The expulsive power of a new affection. Whatever gain I had, I counted as loss. Why? Because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus, my Lord. He wants to know Christ. He wants to gain Christ. And he doesn't think he's gotten there yet. He doesn't know Christ as well as he wants to. He hasn't gained Christ for his soul the way he knows he needs to. He hasn't yet been made perfect in love. But he presses on. Why does he press on? Because Christ Jesus has made me his own. It's the first, the love of God for him that made him respond in love for God. Paul writes these wonderful, stirring, powerful words from where? From a room in prison. where he's handcuffed and shackled to a Roman soldier. But he was more free than that Roman soldier because his heart had been captured by Christ, who was the true object of his worship, the one he rejoiced in, the one he gloried in, and the one he pressed on to know and love more. May Christ so capture our hearts. It's our only hope of becoming as loving as he is toward us. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for the love of Jesus, our Savior. We thank you for the gift of life in him. We thank you for forgiveness for all of our sins. And we pray, Father, that you would stir our hearts with new and true affection for Jesus. and compel us to glory in him, to rejoice in him, to look to him, and in so worshiping him, be made more like him. We pray this in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Well, let's respond now to God's word by singing together, stand in your love.