The following message was given at Grace Community Church in Mendon, Nevada. If you take your Bibles and turn to 1 Corinthians chapter 13, this will be our final sermon in 1 Corinthians 13. I'll be gone for a little while on vacation and preaching, and that's what I do on vacation, is I go and preach. When I get back, we will jump into 1 Corinthians 14, which is one of the most Wonderful, controversial passages you could imagine. But tonight we're gonna wrap up Paul's final paragraph. We started it a couple weeks ago. Start in verse eight, love never fails. But if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away. If there are tongues, they will cease. If there is knowledge, it will be done away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part. But when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child. When I became a man, I did away with childish things. But now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. But now faith, hope, love abide these three, but the greatest of these is love. So a couple weeks ago, we got to this final paragraph, and 1 Corinthians 13 really has just been such a wonderful, wonderful chapter for us to just take our time and go through, and I think if we were all honest with ourselves, we would all conclude that as we read 1 Corinthians 13, that we all have a lot of room to grow in being more loving people. that the descriptions in 1 Corinthians 13 are not true enough of us and that we need the sanctifying work of God's spirit. And one of the things that has struck me just as we've traveled through this and then thinking about even some of the things in Romans is we really do have a tendency not to look at ourselves according to reality. We like to look at ourselves according to the way that we think we look. We like to think about ourselves in the way that we want others to think about us. And a lot of times there's a huge gap between what we are in reality and what we think we are. And the word of God is given to us to correct us. to shape us, to sanctify us, to convict us. So I'll just say, if you haven't been convicted going through 1 Corinthians 13, it's probably because you just don't have a soul. I mean, this is convicting stuff, right? And so as we get to this final paragraph, It really is this wonderful summation, if you will, of this glorious chapter. And so Paul says in 8a, love never fails, right? And we said there were different ways to translate that. I would say something like love endures, right? Or love endures forever. And what Paul's doing is he's making a direct contrast between the love that he's been describing and expounding and the gifts of the Spirit. And here's gonna be the fundamental contrast. The gifts are temporary. Love endures forever. And there's really a glorious Trinitarian reason why love endures forever. But that's the contrast. Gifts are temporary, love endures forever. Love doesn't fail, love endures. And so then Paul says, in fact, that the gifts aren't temporary. Where there are prophecies, they'll be done away. Where there are tongues, they will cease. Where there's knowledge, it will be done away. And Paul basically says that these gifts have, as it were, a built-in, Obsolescence, right? God built into them a temporary shelf life, if you will, and they're not gonna last forever. So what that means is if love never fails, or if you prefer, as I do, love endures, and prophecies will be done away, tongues will cease, and knowledge will come to an end, that is this supernatural gift, then there's no way that gifts can be the goal of the Christian life. Gifts cannot be the goal. So not only are they not the goal, they can't be the goal. Because why in the world would you take something which is by nature going to be obsolete, which is temporary, serves a temporary function, why would you take something that God gives as we'll see in a second to the church in its childhood, and why make that the priority when it is maturity and perfection that is our goal, right? And so, Paul says in verses nine and 10, basically, that the gifts are imperfect, but the perfect is coming. This is an important part, and we went into detail a couple weeks ago, but Paul says, for in part we know, and in part we prophesy. Now, you have to understand, Paul is not disparaging or undermining the sufficiency of God's word. At any given point in redemptive history, what God's people have God has deemed sufficient for faith and practice, okay? So during this age of imperfection, we have the perfect Word of God, but even though having the perfect Word of God, we only know in part, right? So I illustrated it this way a couple weeks ago. So scripture is God's self-disclosure. the way God reveals himself to us, right? So yes, he reveals himself through nature and general revelation and all of that, but that is, there's a fuzziness. to God's self-disclosure in nature, all right? There is, in a sense, high-definition revelation in the Scriptures, in special revelation, all right? So we have, for instance, God reveals Himself as Triune, He reveals His Son, He reveals that His Son is the exact representation of His nature, the outshining of His glory, reveals His redemptive work in His Son, reveals who we are, explicitly what we need, why we need Christ, so forth. So the word of God is special revelation, it's specific revelation, it is the revelation that we need to know in order to know God, know ourselves, and have eternal life. So everything that you need now, in this present age of imperfection, God has given us in his word, all right? Now, God reveals himself, but what has he revealed of himself? Well, everything that he's revealed of himself is absolutely true, totally accurate, but God has revealed, as it were, the tip of the iceberg. God, you think of words, and words actually fail to try to describe what we're trying to say about God at this point. So God is immense. Okay, well, immense just still doesn't quite cut it. The immensity of God is stunning, but it doesn't quite cut the fullness of what we're trying to talk about. The transcendence of God, God's holy other than us, God's majesty, God's glory have all these words and simply all these words indicate to us that God has revealed the tip of the iceberg of who he is and he is infinite, he is eternal, he is incomprehensible, yes, knowable through his word, but incomprehensible, bigger than any of us could ever imagine. So, that's God, and that doesn't even begin to describe God. All right? So by the way, if you have a little tiny God, you don't have the God of the Bible. Years ago, J.B. Phillips, you might remember he had a paraphrase of the New Testament. His most famous book was simply titled, Your God is Too Small. The God of the Bible is not small. He is infinitely big. Right? So, but here's the point. Here's this, okay, infinitely big. That still doesn't even, by the way, big just doesn't do God justice. Okay? Al Eakins is big. All right? God is just, words fail us. There is a word to talk about the way that words fail us. God is ineffable. By the way, sometimes you need words like that to say you don't have words. And so, here's God, he reveals himself, tip of the iceberg is what he reveals in the scriptures through redemptive history. How much of the tip of the iceberg do you fully comprehend? Right, it is the tip of the tip of the iceberg. So you understand, so when Paul says, in part we know, let's just be clear, it is in tiny part that we know. I have no doubt that when we finally see the triune God, we will be stunned doesn't even capture it, but will be stunned forever and ever and ever. And so, Paul says, in part we know, in part we prophesy, and so there's this imperfect, partial, fragmentary age that we live in. But then Paul says that when the perfect comes, it's gonna do away with the partial. Now, we talked about this in detail. Let me just cut to the chase. The perfect, I think, is the state that's brought about by the return of Jesus through the consummation of the ages. He ushers in the perfect. And so then Paul gives two illustrations in verses 11 and 12. And the purpose of both of these illustrations, by the way, both of these in 11 and 12 are very common. They're familiar to us. But a lot of times we don't quite get what Paul's trying to say through these incredibly familiar metaphors. So the purpose of both of them is to demonstrate the imperfection of the present and the perfection of the future, okay? That's the goal of both illustrations. And so the first one is childhood to adulthood, all right? And so right now the church is, now yeah, the church grows and the church matures, but the church is still in this present era in the state of its childhood, its minority. The church has not reached the full measure of the stature of Christ. It's not reached the full maturity of the full man in Christ. And so we are in this state of childhood. And so Paul simply says, When you're a child, you think like a child, you speak like a child, you reason like a child. But when you become a man, you put away childish things. And so, in this present era of the impart, or the partial, we are children. And so, the way that we think is like a child, and And of course, you know, you can't turn around and just say, well, you know, Paul says that we shouldn't be like children, all right? Well, that's a different thing, right? There's a difference between the church being in its period of minority or childhood, and then you as a believer acting like a baby, okay? So we are to be maturing and growing, but the church itself, the universal body is growing and has yet to reach its perfection that will happen when Christ comes. I love our church and I think our church is the most wonderful church in the whole world. I really do. I think it is. I would rather, this is no joke, I would rather preach here than preach anywhere else on the planet. I would rather be here than be in any other church on the planet. A week from this coming Lord's Day, I'm gonna be down in Thousand Oaks, California and preaching at Bethany Bible Church where Pastor Lance Quinn is, and it's a wonderful church. I'm looking forward to it, and I'm really happy because last Sunday, that's where John MacArthur preached, so I feel pretty good about that. But even then, I think to myself, push comes to shove, I'd rather be preaching at home. I really would. This is, forget Disneyland, this is the happiest place. in the world. What is the happiest place on earth, right? And so, but think, are we trial-free? Are we trouble-free? Are we tension-free? Are we sin-free? Are we struggle-free? You ever kind of rub, somebody the wrong way or get rubbed the wrong way? You ever have sinful thoughts about somebody? You ever get angry at somebody? Do you ever jump to conclusions that you find out later on just weren't true? I mean, all of this, by the way, is just a part of being in that era of childishness. There's coming a day when it's gonna be different. Think about this. Right now, think of somebody in church. Think of somebody right here in this room that you get easily annoyed with. Don't look around and then stare at somebody. Somebody just rubs you the wrong way. Here's the amazing thing. One of these days, They'll be perfected, you'll be perfected, and anything about them that you find annoying will be gone, and your annoyability will be gone. By the way, that may well be the bigger miracle. All right? So childhood to adulthood, and then seen in a mirror. Now the NAS says dimly, and I argue that the word actually is the word that we get the English word enigma from. So there's, the point is not that we have no clarity because the mirrors in the ancient world were quite good. The idea is that we're looking and seeing things indirectly. When you're looking at a mirror, you're not looking face to face, you're looking at an image that's being reflected. That's the parallel to what's going on with us in this life. But here's the point is that, so here we have indirect knowledge of God in a sense, indirect knowledge, indirect, in terms of seeing Him, how do you see God? Well, you have to see Him in His word. Do you have eyes of faith to see Him in His word? Yes, but one of these days, think about this, one of these days you won't need a Bible. because you'll have the author face to face. Now I'm hoping that we get to do Bible study in heaven because then we'll all agree, we'll all be right, and it will all be awesome. But the fact is is that there is gonna be this time when the perfect comes where we see face to face. The language itself of face-to-face is intimate. And I explained this word a couple weeks ago. Immediate, no mediation. Immediate, immediate presence, face-to-face, seeing Jesus. So two weeks ago I read to you from the last battle about the last chapter, which is actually the first chapter or something like that, you remember that section. There's this wonderful song by Stephen Curtis Chapman called Glorious Unfolding. If you have lost a loved one in Christ, I'd recommend, don't just listen to the song, watch the video that accompanies the song, it's absolutely stunning. Glorious Unfolding, Stephen Curtis Chapman who really is a Wonderful man of God and musician writes these words. He says, we were made to run through fields of forever, singing songs to our savior and king. So let us remember this life we're living is just the beginning of the beginning. That's what this life is. It's just the beginning of the beginning. One of these days we will see him face to face. So then Paul gets to the final verse, and what are the first two words in verse 13? But, but now. Now, we go from the marvelous, the mystical, and the sublime to grammar. Sorry. Now, if you're sanctified enough, grammar is sublime, Okay, there's like three of us in here that are sanctified. The rest of you gotta get with it. Now, the reason I say that we have to go to grammar is because, think of that little phrase, but now. So the reason I want to do this with you is because I want you to read your Bible better. But now. But now could be Temporal, right? Could be a temporal adverb, but now. Meaning, but right now, in the present age. Could it be something else though? Think hard. I know it's like 7.20 on a Wednesday night, but think hard. So now, all right. But now is the critical word that we're thinking about. But now or so now could be temporal. So it could be a time word, that's what I'm saying. It could be a time word, but it could be something else too, right? Think about what else it could be. What's that? That's still time, okay. Yeah, how about that? So we would say it could be not temporal, but logical. So if I say blah, blah, blah, A, B, C, X, Y, Z, so now I could be simply drawing a logical conclusion, right? Yes, in light of, or as it is, something like that. So here's, now you talk about, you guys think that I'm joking when I say grammar matters, but I wanna just tell you, whether this is temporal or logical determines the rest of the text. Stop and think about it. If it is a time-related word, but now, abides faith, hope, and love, what is the implication? Faith, hope, and love is for the present. They abide now. You see that? If it's logical, it is so then, Faith, hope, and love abide. And what's not the implication there? No end, right? So, You had no idea, right? Temporal or logical has everything to do with whether or not we understand whether faith, hope, and love will last forever or whether they are for this present age. Now, some people would say, and I totally understand this perspective because We'll talk about that in a second. So why bring, okay, so here's the other question. Why bring in faith and hope? What's he been talking about? Has he mentioned faith and hope? Well, like faith to move mountains early on, but has he talked about like the ordinary kind of faith and hope in this chapter? And the answer is really not. He's been focusing on faith. Love, so why bring in faith and hope? You gotta ask yourself that question, right? Why bring in faith and hope? Any ideas why bring in faith and hope? Let me rephrase that. Any good ideas why bring in faith and hope? I don't wanna jump too quick of a conclusion, but I'm gonna say I don't think so. Okay, well that's, is that what you're saying? If that's what you're saying, I think that's okay. No, because I don't think faith and hope are contrasted with love. Okay, they're not contrasted. There's a wonderful comparison in which love is superlative, love is the greatest. Eddie has his hand up. Well, if the but now is temporal, then yes, right? So this is why this is so important. I always regret this. Anyway. But the greatest, yes, yeah. All right, well, let's move on here for a second. So, how many times are faith, hope, and love mentioned together? This is the famous triad of Christian virtue. Faith, hope, and love. Paul mentions faith, hope, and love no less than a half a dozen times together. Faith, hope, and love are mentioned no less than four other times outside of Paul together. Right? So there's something, now this doesn't answer it specifically, but let's just say there is something magnificent in Christian theology about the way that faith, hope, and love work together. The way that they're joined together. the way that they are related, right? So in some sense, what I wanna say is, the reason Paul brings in faith and hope at the end is simply because it's really hard for him to think about love all by itself, separated from these other two. Anybody ever used to watch New Heart? Okay. I'm Larry. This is my brother, Daryl. Anybody remember the last line? And my other brother Daryl, right? So Larry, Daryl, and Daryl just go together like faith, hope, and love. There you have it. Okay. Well, you didn't watch enough TV in the 90s. So let's bring this in. Faith and hope, by the way, are let's just say multidimensional, right? Faith and hope, you don't just have like one little word that glosses for faith or one little word that glosses for hope. They're multidimensional. So the question, the question by the way is not does love abide forever because Paul in a sense has already indicated that it does. The question is, what about faith and hope? And so, you can understand, if temporal, guess what? Faith and hope are coming to an end. If logical, there may be a way in which they continue. Okay, so, what do we think about this? So, in some ways, will faith, notice how I qualified it, in some ways, will faith pass away? In some ways, will faith pass away? Yes. 2 Corinthians 5, 7, we walk by faith, not by sight, right? Lord haste the day when the faith shall be sight. The clouds be rolled back, we just sang it Sunday, right? We sing it every Lord's Supper. The clouds be rolled back as a scroll, right? Trump shall resound, the Lord shall descend, even so it's well with my soul. So there's a sense in which faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen. Is there coming a day when faith becomes sight? Yes! That's the face-to-face day, right? Now, is there anything else to faith? What if we simply said, The word faith, both in the Hebrew Old Testament and the Greek New Testament, can be understood in the sense of trust, right? Is there clearly a future orientation to faith in the New Testament? The answer is yes. That future orientation goes away when faith becomes sight, but faith as Explicit trust. Will that ever disappear? I don't think so. I don't think so. I know that in this present age, my trust in God, we're gonna look at this Sunday, we're gonna get out of Romans just for a, just one sermon, and then we're gonna look at Isaiah 49, We're gonna see sometimes God's people don't trust Him like they should. I know that that doesn't fit anybody in this room, but there are other Christians out there that don't. Oh, maybe in here too, right? So, Think of it this way, the future orientation of faith gives way to sight, but the trust aspect of faith becomes perfected as I now totally, completely, perfectly trust God. just as sure as all of his promises are consummated, so in a real sense, my faith is consummated. Wonderful thing to think about, right? Never doubt ever again. Never struggle to believe ever again, never, wonderful. What about hope? Is there, by the way, is hope predominantly a future-oriented word? Absolutely. In fact, Paul says, here's the logic, if you can see what you hope for, then hope is no longer hope. Right? Okay, so hope has this incredible future orientation, probably I would say even maybe more so than faith does, And so hope as a future-oriented aspect of our relationship with God, does our hope become sight as well? All the things that you've hoped for. So when you think about heaven, when you think about the Lord's presence, when you think about the completion and consummation of your salvation, What are some of your biggest hopes? This isn't hard, right? And by the way, you understand, not wishful thinking, confident expectation. What's my confident expectation for the future? I'll see Christ, right? I won't sin anymore. Is that a big one? That should be right below seeing Jesus, I'm not gonna sin anymore. Right? Do we have other hopes that are going to be realized in the eschaton, in the consummation? And the answer is yes. Not only no sin in us, but no sin in brothers and sisters, and reunited with loved ones in Christ. I mean, there's so much that we hope in for the future, but here's the thing. Heaven, think new heavens, new earth, is not static, right? It's not you on a cloud with a harp, bored. Don't tell kids this, they won't want to go to heaven. John Piper has this great quote from thinking back when he was nine years old and he's like, the last thing I wanted to do was go to heaven because it just seemed like this interminably long worship service, right? So you remember when we were looking at the theology of Jonathan Edwards and we were talking about heaven and Edwards talked in terms of of increased capacities. So heaven's not static, there is an eternal increase of joy, an eternal increase of love, will we continue to grow in love for God and the son and the spirit forever? And the answer is yes. And you go, well, I thought it's gonna be perfected. So this is my illustration of what Edwards is trying to get at is, so you blow up a balloon, is that balloon completely full of air? Yes, it is. I don't know what kind of balloons you guys have, but when I blow up a balloon, whether it's this big or this big, it's got air through the whole thing, right? Guess what you can do? You can put more air in it. And more air in it. And more air in it. And so when we see Christ, we will be perfected but perfection in the eternal state is not static, it equips us for an ever eternal increase of joy and love that comes from God. Now, if hope is confident expectation, by the way, will you continue to learn about God? Absolutely. Guess what you will always be forever and ever? Finite. Which means you're always in the posture of learning. Guess what God is forever and ever? Infinite. So as long as finite, infinite, as long as that exists, we never exhaust the fullness of the knowledge of God. I don't know what it's gonna be like. You can just do your best to just imagine, but I could just, there you are, and we can talk about whether eternity is successively temporal, that is ages of ages, or if it's autemporal, timeless. I'm not a timeless guy, I'm a successive ages upon ages guy that never ends. So anyway, we can debate that if you want, but I don't want to because I just know I'm right. Now, here's the thing. So let's just say, let's just say, so what do we sing when we sing Amazing Grace? When we've been there, 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun. So let's say on year 10,001, all right, just assuming that my successive ages of ages is right, all right? 10,001, and there I am, and I don't know if we do this all together or if it's individual, but let's just assume it's individual. And there I am on year 10,001, and in my glorified mind, I have a new increased capacity to see something new about God. It's not new in God, it's new to me. So you know what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna run and go, Eddie, look what I just learned. And you know what Eddie's gonna do? Eddie's gonna say, that's awesome, and I just learned it too. Forever learning and growing. If hope is confident expectation that God is who he is and will do what he has said he will do, then there is a sense in which hope is consummated with the absolute confidence that the state that I am in and am in forever will only get better and more glorious and more magnificent and hope becomes realized day after day, millennia after millennia, light years after light years. So, Wonderful things to think about, but all that to say, maybe but now is logical, not temporal. One thing is for sure, by the way, I think no matter whether it's logical or temporal, those things we just talked about end up being true in one way or another. But what's the greatest? Love. The greatest of these is love. So, why? Okay, yeah, we never read God as faith. We never read God as hope. We do read God as love. By the way, God doesn't, the next time I hear a preacher say, God believes in you, or God has faith in you, I might just punch him in the face. That is the stupidest thing ever. I just heard it recently. God believes in you. Really? Really? That's so lame. It makes God look weak. He believes in me? He's gonna be an atheist before too long then. So we don't say God is faith, we don't say God is hope, right? God doesn't need hope. So I totally say, yeah, God is love, but what I want you to do, I want you to think about this, because this is really wonderful. So when we trust God, we honor God as faithful. Right? So when I trust Him, when I bank my hope on a promise, when I obey Him out of faith, what I'm doing is I'm saying, you're faithful. I honor you as faithful, right? When we have confident expectation, right, that we hope in God that He is our treasure, we hope in Him, we magnify Him then, as a glorious, all-satisfying person. So when I say my hope is in the Lord, what I'm saying is He's my confidence. I have a strength and a stability that comes from hope in Him. So when I do that, by the way, I honor Him as trustworthy and as a treasure. So Having faith in God honors God and hoping in God honors God. But what about love? Here's what I want to suggest to you. When we love, when we love God and when we love each other, we honor him because that's when we're the most like him. Does that make sense why love ends up being, in a sense, the greatest? When I have faith in God, I honor God as trustworthy. When I have hope in God, I magnify Him as a treasure. But when I love, I am actually most like Him, because He's love. Now, there's something more to it than that. When I love, I am manifesting what exists within the Trinity. There was a time when faith was not. Right, you got it? In eternity past. Was there any need for the Holy Spirit to say to the Father, I trust you? None! There was a time when hope was not. There has never been a time when love was not. Because the Father has eternally, perfectly loved the Son. The Son has eternally and perfectly loved the Father. The Spirit has eternally and perfectly loved the Father and the Son. The Father and the Son have perfectly and eternally loved the Spirit, right? So there is this beautiful, glorious triune relationship. Society that is bound together by love. The father is love, the son is love, the spirit is love, they love each other. By the way, stop and think about this, if God is not triune, then there was a time when love was not. Let's say the non-Trinitarian monotheism of Islam has no room for a God who loves. Love is rooted in the Trinity. Do you understand that? Love is rooted in the Trinity. It is rooted in the intra-trinitarian relationship between the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit. And so love is gonna be the greatest thing in all of eternity. Why? Because it is what marks the relationship between the Father and the Son and the Spirit before creation. It will mark the relationship between the elect and the Trinity throughout the new creation, and in a real sense, love is the pinnacle of God's triune glory. All right, so I sent this out. One of my favorite Jonathan Edwards sermons is Heaven is a World of Love. It is his final sermon in the series on charity and its fruits. You can go to the Yale Center, and go to the Edwards Center, and then log in. You wanna do this. I mean, if you wanna get to heaven, you gotta be on the Yale Center. Edwards Center for the Study. All right, but go on. Everything, 74 volumes of Edwards is free, digitized, online. Go to volume eight, Ethical Writings. and you have charity and its fruits in its unaltered state. I don't even know how many times I've read charity and its fruits. Because it never gets old. Here's why it never gets old. Edward's talking about heaven. He says, there dwells God the Father and so the Son who are united in infinitely dear and incomprehensible mutual love. There dwells God the Father, who is the Father of mercies and so the Father of love, who so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life. There dwells Jesus Christ, the Lamb of God, the Prince of peace and love, who so loved the world that he shed his blood and poured out his soul unto death for it. There dwells the mediator by whom all God's love is expressed to the saints by whom the fruits of it have been purchased and through whom they are communicated and through whom love is imparted to the hearts of all the church. In other words, there's the triune God and what are they doing? They're pouring out their love on the saints. There, Christ dwells in both his natures, his human and divine, sitting with the Father in the same throne. There is the Holy Spirit, the spirit of divine love, in whom the very essence of God, as it were, all flows out, or is breathed forth in love, and by whose immediate, that is without mediation, by whose immediate influence, all holy love is shed abroad in the hearts of all the church. There in heaven is this fountain of love. This eternal three in one is set open without any obstacle to hinder access to it. There this glorious God is manifested and shines forth in full glory in beams of love. There the fountain overflows in streams and rivers of love and delight, enough for all to drink at, to swim in, yea, so as to overflow the world as it were with a deluge of love. That's why you should read this sermon. By the way, this is just two paragraphs. Edwards goes on like this for 18 pages. Man, the greatest of these is love. Why? Because God in his triune being is a fountain of love who will forever overflow, not just trickle, Heaven isn't gonna just be trickles of love. Heaven is going to be this overwhelming, magnificent, inexhaustible deluge of love that you can swim in forever. That's why to understand His love now, shatters the power of sin over us. You know, when we sin, it's because we're not satisfied with the love of God. So, okay, let me wrap it up. In eternity, the greatest of these is love. We'll be perfected in love. and we will perfectly enjoy that love. Think about this. When we reach the state of perfection, we'll be in the immediate face-to-face presence of God, who is love. at the beatific vision, that's what old timers called it, when you see God beatific, the happy vision, beatific sounds more holy, we will be wholly perfected in that love, and in fact, we will fully participate, fully participate, this is all Edwards language, by the way, with unmitigated fullness, there's nothing, is there anything in my life now that hinders me from fully enjoying the love of God? Yes, the list is quite long. First of all, I'm finite, second of all, I'm limited, and third and worst of all, I'm sinful, and I still have sins, and so every single one of those sins is something that hinders my access to fully enjoying the triune love of God. So in heaven, guess what? All hindrances, boom, washed away. Man, if that doesn't excite you, right, yeah, you're dead, that's right. Actually, if you were dead, you'd be more excited. So we'll love God in a way that we've never known before. Doesn't your heart just beat to want to love God more? Doesn't your heart just throb to have more love to Christ Aren't you just tired of loving the stupid stuff of the world that passes away and is cheap? And say, oh, there I did it again. I gave up the living fountain for a broken cistern that doesn't hold any water. There's coming a day when we'll love God in a way that we've never known, we'll experience God's love for us in a way that we've never known. And here's, by the way, it's not just this way, it flows over. There's coming a day where we will love each other like never before. You will love and be loved by brothers and sisters like never before. Every single one of us has something inside of our hearts that says we want to be loved more, we want to be loved better. Right? Even if you have the most wonderful spouse in this present age, which is passing away, like Ariel does. There's still something that just says, I could love her better, right? And I've got a desire to be loved better. There's coming a day when we will all love each other Perfectly. What a day that will be. You'll be so perfected in love. This is Edwards again, so there's a person that's got more capacity to enjoy the glory of God than you do. He'll be so perfected in love, he won't be tempted to pride for it. And you'll be so perfected in love, you won't be tempted to envy. What a world this is gonna be. What a world this is gonna be. And so, until then, you know what we do? We strive to know more and more of the love of God for us in Christ. We do our best to soak in it. We do our best to meditate on it. We do our best to sink down into texts that teach us about God's love. We sing songs about God's love. So I was exercising today and I've got all these songs on my phone. There's a song that comes up and I usually just, I fast forward it, I don't know why. It's How He Loves Us, Dave Crowder. Anybody know what song I'm talking about? One person, right? I usually forward it because it's sort of a, Sort of like this contemporary pop thing, but I just, and I like it, but I don't like it enough to listen to it every time it comes on, so I'd rather listen to CCR and Proud Mary. Some of you are just hopeless. Anyway, I listened to it today. Listened to it today. Just listen to the words. He's overwhelmed with a sense of the intensity of God's love for me. The intensity. God loves you with an intensity that is off the charts. And it is that love that we tap into by the Holy Spirit and are empowered to love others. And so, 1 Corinthians 13 should be a close friend to us, one that we visit regularly and say, Lord, search my heart, try me. Test me according to your word and help me to grow in the love of Christ so that I would love you and love others better. What a world this would be if we just loved God and each other better. Let's pray. Father, thank you for this text. Thank you for 1 Corinthians 13. What a gift to the church. And we pray that you would help us to grow in your love, that we might love you more and love each other better. Father, remind us that when we love, we are most like you. We pray for your help, and we look to you tonight, in Jesus' name. Amen.