Lord, I pray that as we look at 1 Corinthians 13, God, that you would bless our hearts, that you would encourage us and compel us, Lord, to serve one another, serve you in the way you would have in your name. Amen. All right, 1 Corinthians 13 is where we're gonna go this morning. You know, I thought it was interesting when Paul Ryan, who was Mitt Romney's VP pick when he was going for the office, when he was traveling around the United States, Paul Ryan sort of let it slip whether intentionally or accidentally, that he worked out to P90X. And P90X, for those of you who don't know, you might have Googled it when you heard Paul Ryan mention that, is supposed to be this really over-the-top, extreme, intense workout program. And it's interesting, some of the articles that came out after that show that this actually boosted his approval ratings. Because people like P90X. Now, what P90X has to do with bouncing a budget and all that political stuff, who knows? I guess that's how America decides who they're going to vote for. But people liked it, obviously, because it's associated with something extreme, and we like to be associated with something extreme and strong and powerful and things that few people can do. And so intensive workout programs, you know, if you do it, man, if you're able to run with the professionals, you must be pretty incredible. But something else that I heard about P90X is that, yes, it's extreme, but a lot of people also like it because it has a very practical way of helping you get to the extreme. So it doesn't say do a million push-ups or you're a loser. It says maybe you can only do two push-ups, right? But kill yourself doing those two push-ups and know where your limit is. That's a big thing. Know your limit. Know your limit. And then, well, we'll help you get to the extreme. You know, when I come to a passage like 1 Corinthians 13, if you've done anything more than a glossary look at 1 Corinthians 13, you're going to quickly realize that this passage is the P90X of love, if you will. It is the extreme love. Now, by extreme, I don't mean you don't have a chance in loving this way. Christians are to be examples of extreme love. The world dabbles in love. The Christian who has God in his life, who, as we talked about last week, whose love life is rooted in the God of the universe, and out from that pours a love for humanity, for the body of Christ, well, that kind of Christian should be extreme compared to the rest of the world with our kind of love, with our kind of patience, with our long-suffering, with our kindness, with all the various expressions of love. But one of the things that you might run into, the problems that a person might run into when they encounter an intensive workout routine is they think, okay, I haven't worked out a day in my life, but here I'm gonna do it, and they push play, and they watch the first 10 minutes, and they say, this is unrealistic. There's no way I can possibly do it, and they give up. And I don't know about you, but when I really start studying out the features of love in 1 Corinthians 13, that's almost the impact I get, is can I really do this? I mean, this is intense love. When I read about love is not provoked, I just have to think back a couple days where I was provoked. Love does not keep a record of wrong. We think back the last time we argued with our spouse, and we were pretty good at ticking off a short list. of things that they have done wrong in the past to bolster our argument in the whole disagreement. So, we have a very fleshly, unloving side of us that is actually pretty good at keeping a record of wrong, and love is patient, love is kind, and we see our unkindness, and we see our impatience, and soon we realize that, okay, I have a lot to, a lot of work to do. But what is important is that the apostle Paul tells in 1 Corinthians 15 58 that the Christian should be steadfast, immovable, and what? Always abounding, that's the King James Version, always abounding in the work of the Lord. Now how am I gonna abound in love if I don't know my limit? Like a good practical workout program, if I don't know where I am, presently know my weakness, how can I know that I abound? I don't want anybody to walk out of here this morning thinking, I just need to love more. That's what I'm getting from 1 Corinthians 13. I want us to think specifically, strategically, what are those moments where I don't love? When am I unkind? What are those scenarios? Who are those people that really just sour my attitude? And how can I learn to love 1 Corinthians 13? to love beyond that? How can I get beyond that? So we have to start by knowing where our limit is. We've got to understand our nature, understand our weaknesses, understand when we become unloving. And it can't just be our opinion, maybe we need to ask somebody who loves us, when do I become unloving? So that's the question we're gonna ask when we get to verse four of 1 Corinthians 13, if we get there this morning. But there's one verse that I have to deal with, because we have to treat every word of God's inspired word, and that is verse 31 of chapter 12, because I never really dealt with that. That is the bridge between chapter 12 and chapter 13. So verse 31 says, but highly esteem the greater gifts, or earnestly desire," your translation might have, earnestly desire, highly esteem the greater gifts, and I show you a still more excellent way. Now this verse is why Peter says in 1 Peter 3 16 that some of Paul's words are difficult to understand. Because the last part of verse 12, Paul spent all that time saying, all gifts are equal, we shouldn't be coveting one another's spiritual gifts, there really are no worse or greater gifts, all gifts are equally necessary. And then in one fell swoop in verse 31, he says, earnestly desire the greater gifts. It's almost like he's saying, remember how I said don't covet other people's gifts? Well, you should covet the greater gifts. It's like he turns everything on its head. Now when we come to something like this, obviously we believe in the inspiration of scriptures, we shouldn't be saying, well Paul, you know, he can't put two verses together without contradicting himself. Obviously Paul, this is so blatant and so obvious that Paul knows he's doing something. If I were to say to you this morning, I don't want you to hear me, I want you to listen to me. We probably shouldn't jump to the first conclusion, you know, Nate can't even strand two sentences together without contradicting himself. Maybe it's so obvious that there's a play on words there. Don't listen, don't hear me, but I want you to listen to me. We see that throughout the Bible. We see that in Proverbs 26, four and five, where Solomon says, don't answer a fool according to his folly, and the next verse says, do answer a fool according to his folly. So even maybe the wisest man who ever lived can't put two verses together without contradicting himself, or there's a play on words. So probably that's what, well definitely it's what Paul's doing here, but of course the question is, well what is he doing with it? We understand this play on words, he's kind of saying the opposite of everything he said, but what's his point? What's his point? He's got to have an agenda here. And this is kind of where the controversy is. One of the main arguments of what Paul is doing, explanation here, clearing up the fog of what Paul is doing, is it sides with the ancient Syriac translation. Syriac is the first time the Bible is translated out of the original language into another language, Syriac. And the Syriac translates it as this. Because you are zealous of the best gifts, I will show you a more excellent way. In other words, the Syriac says, Paul is not commanding them be zealous or highly esteem the greater gifts. Paul's actually rebuking them. Because you guys seem to always be desiring the greater gifts, I'm gonna have to show you a more excellent way. Now that smooths things out pretty well. That agrees, because he just got through rebuking them for desiring gifts that they thought were greater. But the only problem with that is if you go to chapter 14 and verse one, it says, pursue love, yet earnestly desire spiritual gifts. And very clearly, chapter 14, verse one, is not a rebuke, but again, a command. Now, especially when you understand that 1 Corinthians 13 is what we call a parenthetical chapter. In other words, the logical flow from chapter 12 to chapter 14 is seamless. This is a perfectly logical, fluid argument on the spiritual gifts, and Paul actually interrupts his flow of thought with chapter 13, this chapter on love. So if we take out chapter 13, we understand really the verse that comes after chapter 12, verse 31, is chapter 14, verse 1. So why would Paul end chapter 12 by saying, I rebuke you for desiring the greater gifts, and then 14, I command you to desire the greater gifts. Well that would introduce a lot of confusion. So I think we have to stick to the fact that in verse 31 of chapter 12, Paul is issuing them a command. Now I'm not gonna get too deep into this so we have time to move into chapter 13, but here I think is what Paul is doing. Simply put, if you look at chapter 12, Paul is talking to individuals. He's saying, you know, if the foot says because I'm not the hand, I'm not part of the body, or if one member suffers, all the members suffers, he's talking about individuals. He's almost as though he's preaching to individuals within the church. And he's saying the individual in the body of Christ should not covet other people's spiritual gifts, should understand they're all equally necessary, and should just be content. But when he gets to verse 31, where he says, It might not have that in the English, but in the Greek, there's a pronoun that's plural there, and you could translate it, you all desire the greater gifts. I command all of you to have, and I think a better translation is, have a high esteem of greater gifts. So here's the difference. The individual is not to covet other people's spiritual gifts, but as a body in Christ, there are some spiritual gifts that should be highly esteemed and respected by the church. So as an individual, don't covet other people's spiritual gifts. We're all equal. But yet, there are some gifts that as a body of Christ, you should highly esteem. You should earnestly desire not to individually practice, but simply to have a respect and an honor for those gifts. This is John Calvin's interpretation. He says, Paul does not, however, address individuals as though he wished that everyone should aspire at prophecy or the office of teacher. This is an attitude that the church has. So there's still one more problem. If Paul just said in chapter 12, all gifts are equal, then how as a congregation can we highly honor the greater gifts? Well, greater implies that all gifts are not equal, right? Well, all gifts are equal, Paul argues, in value and importance and necessity, but just to remind you, if you look at chapter 12 and verses 28 and 29, Paul lists some spiritual gifts And he starts with that word first, and God is appointed in the church first, meaning there's a logical order to the spiritual gifts he's giving. They're in descending order. They're not in order of importance, because they're all equally important. They're not in importance of necessity. They're all equally necessary. Remember what I said, they're in order of authority. Now that makes sense, that a church should honor spiritual gifts in reference to their authority. Apostles being the most authoritative office. Prophet in conjunction with the Old Testament prophets like Elijah and Agabus in the New Testament, very authoritative. Teacher, especially if he's honing in on pastor teacher, part of the elder board, is an authoritative position. So the body of Christ should honor and highly esteem these apostles, prophets, teachers in that descending order. Now why is it important for the body of Christ to honor those gifts and those office holders? because prophet, apostle, and teacher are the three gifts that teach the congregation and inform the congregation about how they are to practice their spiritual gift. It doesn't make the office of a pastor, teacher, or prophet or apostle more important, it just helps understand why there is this sort of prominence there because it's a teaching gift and it informs the church. So I think that really, really answers this apparent shift between chapter 12 and verse 31, and also it answers why in chapter 14, Paul is gonna harp so much on the gift of prophecy. Why he thinks that as a congregation, they should have a high esteem for the gift of prophecy. So just in summary, as individuals, we are not to covet other people's spiritual gifts, but as a congregation, we're to highly esteem the most authoritative spiritual gifts for the good of the congregation. And you know what? That matches Corinthians because they were not doing that. They were questioning Paul's apostleship. They weren't honoring the spiritual gift. They didn't really care about teaching. They cared about the sophists and the traveling and eloquence and mysteries and all that stuff. They didn't care about solid teaching. So it makes sense that Paul has to exhort them. In fact, in Matthew chapter 10 and verse 41, Jesus himself said that you are to receive, if you receive a prophet in the name of a prophet, you will receive a prophet's reward. If you receive a righteous man in the name of a righteous man, you receive a righteous man's reward. What is he saying? If you receive someone based upon their God-given office, you're going to receive the reward that they're going to get. So Corinthian church, receive these authoritative gifts and you'll receive their reward. It will go well for you. If you don't, if you question Paul's apostleship, if you do things like that, well, it's not gonna go well for you. I think that's what Paul is establishing in verse 31. And then of course he says, let me pause, let me show you the most excellent way to execute these spiritual gifts. So point number one, there'll only be two points. First, life without love. Paul wants to employ the most graphic, forceful metaphors and terminology to establish one simple fact. If body life in the church is devoid of love, it is pointless. It is tragic. It is the most horrible thing you could ever wish or hope for a church, is that they would be totally loveless. So look at verse one, if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. Now this verse becomes one of the favorite verses for people who think that the gift of tongues is actually the literal language of angels, that up in heaven they're speaking this language and when we speak in tongues we're literally sort of tapping into whatever dialect. They're speaking them. But it's interesting, if you look throughout the scriptures, we have a lot of examples of people talking with angels, angels talking to people, and they're never speaking different languages. There's never any need to do that. But I think if you really biblically examine the gift of tongues, what you see in the book of Acts and 1 Corinthians 14 is the necessity at times to speak in languages that you have never learned in order to share the gospel. Now that makes a lot of sense when it comes to the importance of the gospel and the importance of the church. It could also be a metaphor. This whole chapter, especially the opening three verses, is filled with metaphors. So if someone were to come up to me and said, you know, Judy Morgan has the voice of an angel. I would not think that she literally transposed herself into some angelic celestial being. I would think someone is saying she just has a beautiful voice. So it's a common metaphor, was then, even is now. But ultimately, when we examine the book of Acts and the gift of tongues, when we examine 1 Corinthians 14 and the gift of tongues, whatever we conclude from the text can be applied to the tongues of angels here. Tongues of angels is too simple of a statement to sort of derive truckloads of theology of what exactly is the gift of tongues. So all Paul is simply saying here is if I come to a person and I speak in a common tongue or I speak with supernatural enablement, celestial enablement, but I do not have love in my heart. If I give them the best advice, if I quote a million Bible verses, but I do not have love in my heart, I am like a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And gongs and cymbals, they were used in the mystery cults. The Corinthian church would have thought of the cults that they're sort of saved out of. But most of all, Gongs and cymbals, if they're all by themselves, are just really annoying. Imagine if I brought a big brass gong from Japan, and I put it up on the stage, and I said, now for some special music, and I just started wailing away on that thing with irregular rhythm. You know, besides small children crying and us covering up our ears and probably people go and stand in the hallway until I'm done with this thing, you know, this would just be an incredibly annoying and almost angering effect. It's just so obnoxious. Paul says, I don't care if you have the spiritual gift of tongues. If you don't have love, this is how you're going to sound. Now, we need to be careful with that because a lot of times we might confront someone in love and because they're offended, because they have that knee-jerk reaction, they'll say, well, you're a noisy, gaunt, clingy symbol because I know you don't have any love in your heart. And maybe they're expressing the greatest love by actually showing care for your sanctification. So we need to be slow to judge in that regards. This is for the person who is expressing love verbally to another person. This is to hold us in check. Do I love this person? Is that why I'm motivated to do this? Do I love this person? this person. And remember, we can't forget, this love is rooted in our love for God and His love for us. That's why I preached the message that I did last week. It can't just be, I love people, I'm just one of those guys. It has to be an overflow of this rich, robust, mature love relationship we have with God. And we can't help but have that love spill over to other people. Verse two, if I have the gift of prophecy and I know all mysteries and knowledge, now you have to discern is this prophecy or preaching or is it, because there's two kinds of prophecy, is it preaching or is it the giving of divine revelation directly from God pertaining to the mysteries of the new covenant, Jew, Gentile being co-heirs of the kingdom of God, which is it? Well here it's clearly the mysteries of the new covenant. This is the most spectacular form of prophecy. Now notice Paul is not picking spiritual gifts here in his intro, the first three verses, like the gift of helps, the gift of administration. He's not picking these gifts that the Corinthian church would say, oh yeah, those are nice gifts, but they're not nearly as important and nearly as flashy as the gift of tongues and revelatory prophecies. Those are the things that they had this unhealthy fatuation with. And Paul is selecting these gifts and saying, you know, if you have these gifts, you understand all mysteries and all knowledge. And then he says, if you have faith so as to remove mountains. Now remember when we talked about the spiritual gift of faith, each time Jesus uses in his life in the gospels, he uses this statement, if you have faith so as to remove mountains, it's right after he has performed a miracle or right after the disciples should have performed a miracle. So this gift of faith is in conjunction with the gift of miracles. So, again, another very, even to this day, people think this is this most important, if you have this, you must be super godly, this very flashy miracle. And Paul is saying, if you have perfect faith so that you're able to bring about all kinds of these miracles, but do not have love, he says, then I am nothing. You could literally translate this, I am no one. Now that's not very good on the self-esteem. I am no one in the kingdom of God. I amount to nothing in the kingdom of God if I do what I do without love. It doesn't matter how productive I am, how good I am at getting the job done, how good at people are at mobilizing ministries, how good you are at even raising your family. The most noble things you can apply yourself to, if it's done out of love, God says, you're nothing. See, the value system in the Kingdom of God is radically different than the value system here in the United States. God so much doesn't tabulate how much you accomplish and so much the product as He does. Whatever you did, did you do it out of love for Him, first of all, and for the people of God, second of all. Did you do it out of love? It's a non-negotiable. Verse three, and if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and this is aorist in the Greek, it's a completed action. In other words, it's a moment in time action. You go home today, you look around your house, look at your cars, think about your time shares, say I'm selling it all. I'm gonna sell every bit of it, I'm gonna sell every car, sell my dog, sell my cat, sell everything. and I am gonna buy 20 tractor trailers full of food, and I'm gonna give it to the local food bank, and I'm gonna sit back and watch those starving people eat, and I'm gonna get that sense of satisfaction, you know, this incredibly noble thing, it's gonna wind up in the newspaper, man sells everything he owns to feed the poor, amazing, but you do it to feel better about yourself, you do it to pave your road to heaven, You do it as a sense of accomplishment for whatever reason, but you don't do it out of a love for others rooted in a love for God, then it profits absolutely nothing. And if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Now this translation has stuck for a while. Surrender my body to be burned, because that's a very graphic image that is burned in our mind. But Paul wrote 1 Corinthians in 55 AD, and in 64 AD, Nero burnt Rome, but he blamed it on the Christians. And it really wasn't until Nero burnt Rome that Christians started getting burnt at the stake. So some people look at this and say, okay, Christians weren't getting burnt during the time of 1 Corinthians 13, but of course that isn't justifiable evidence to change the scripture, it just, you know, raises some questions. But when we look at the Alexandrian family of manuscripts, we understand that God has preserved his word in all these manuscripts, we look at the oldest manuscripts, they actually have a different word here, and they translate it this way, if I surrender my body so that I may boast, Now, some of your study Bibles might have that in the margins. Now, surrender my body so that I may boast, that kind of sounds awkward and it doesn't stick as well as surrender my body to be burned, so you can see why it hasn't really caught on, but I think the manuscript evidence is there for it. And another question to ask is, is this the way Paul talks? Does Paul talk anywhere else in the Pauline epistles of being burned to the stake? No. Does he talk anywhere else in the Pauline epistles about surrendering his body so that he may boast a kind of, again, not a kind of boast that the world has, but a kind of inverted boast that Christians have? Does he ever talk that way? Yeah. In 2 Corinthians chapter 11, verse 17, He says, what I am saying, I am not saying as the Lord would, but as in foolishness, in this confidence of boasting. So this, God would never talk this way, but I'm gonna engage in a little bit of foolishness for you, Corinthian church. I'm gonna do this very strange kind of boasting here. I'm gonna boast about things you'll never see on a resume. I'm going to give you some credentials that they'll never give the Nobel Peace Prize to someone for accomplishing. It says, these are my credentials. Verse 18, I more so, and far more labors and far more imprisonments, beaten times without number, often in danger of death. Five times I received from the Jews 39 lashes. Three times I was beaten with rods. Once I was stoned. Three times I was shipwrecked. A night and a day I have spent in the deep. I have been on frequent journeys in dangers from river, dangers from robbers, dangers from countrymen, dangers from Gentiles, dangers in the city, dangers in the wilderness, dangers on the sea, dangers among false brethren. I have been in labor and hardship through many sleepless nights, in hunger and thirst, often without food and cold and exposure. Apart from such external things, there is the daily pressure on me of concern for all the churches. Who is weak without my being weak? Who is led into sin without my intense concern? If I have to boast, I will boast of what pertains to my weakness." So what is Paul talking about? this strange sort of bragging rights that a Christian might have, and don't take that in the sinful bragging rights, but this is what I have lost, this is how I have suffered for the sake of Christ, so that, engage me in a little insanity, Paul says, I can boast before God. So Paul is saying, if I surrender my body to this extent so that I may boast, but I don't have love, there's no profit in it. And we automatically tend to make a celebrity out of somebody who has lost everything for Christ, right? We see what they've lost, we see what they've suffered, they become a martyr for the cause of Christ, no higher cause, and we automatically make a saint out of them, make a statue, put it in the window, pay the ultimate price. But according to 1 Corinthians 13, what's the first question we should ask? Did they do what they did out of love? Because apart from love, God doesn't care what you put your body through for the sake of the kingdom. It finds its value, that's the exchange rate, that's the currency in the kingdom of God. It finds its value in a heart that is rooted in love for God and is spilling over in a love for man. So that's Paul's intro. He wants us to understand. I think he wants to strike a holy fear in the heart of all believers reading this, a fear that we would ever do anything out of love. Just double-check our motives, double-check our actions. Why am I coming to church this morning? Why am I interacting with people? Why am I desiring to involve myself in the body of Christ? Why am I fulfilling this ministry? Ultimately, why is it? Do I have a love for the body of Christ? It really makes you do some serious inventory. A second point, and last point, the 14 qualities of love. We're only gonna look at three, maybe, but there's 14 qualities, and we'll get to them all, hopefully, Lord willing, next week. But the first quality, look at verse four, is patience. Love is patient. Patient is a person undergoing medical treatment. Guys, a couple people put up their head, what's he talking about? Okay. Patience is, according to the dictionary, manifesting forbearance under provocation or strain. Manifesting forbearance, being patient persevering, relentless, your eyes are set on the high prize of the calling of Jesus Christ, and you have the world caving in on you, you have Satan raining down fiery darts upon you, you have all sorts of oppositions. It's almost like when we were born again, God picked us up and put us in the gauntlet. You have blades swinging at you, you have leather gloves swirling at you, people are throwing rotten fruit at you, and you're looking at Christ, you're looking at the goal, and you're praying for the patience to joyfully persevere to that goal in spite of all the provocation that the world is bringing on. That's the image of the Christian battle. So, this is the part where we think specifically, who are the people, what are the scenarios, what are the situations that tempt us or might seem to cause us to be impatient, to just be very curt and harsh with our thoughts and words, to sour our mood toward them. We begin to avoid them. At that point, God is not looking down on us saying, you remind me of my son. I love that. He's saying, you're actually nothing like my son. You're departing from the high calling of the Christian life of looking like Jesus Christ. So what are those situations? If God is sovereign, he's intentionally placed those situations in your life so that you learn to love through patience. As much as we don't like it, he has put that into our life. Here is patience. For three solid years, Jesus tirelessly taught the 12 disciples many truths, but one primary truth, that he shows the Father. In his words, in his thoughts, in his behavior, in his action, his character is just a gate to understanding the Father. You've seen me, you've seen the Father, again and again and again, John 5, John 14, these passages again and again talking about that's my role, the Trinity, that's why I'm here, you wanna know God, No me, I'm the way to the Father. And so he teaches that his whole life, and then the evening that he is going to be arrested and the next morning he's gonna be crucified, he's in the upper room with the 11 disciples, Judas has been dismissed, and they've just celebrated the Lord's Supper, and Philip turns to him and says, Lord, show us the Father and it'll be sufficient for us. You know, that's like Tim Cook standing next to Steve Jobs' deathbed, saying, before you die, I just want to understand one thing, because you're handing this empire over to me, you know, what is the difference again between the iPad and the desktop? I just, you know, I mean at that point, you're thinking, what can I even say? If you are that ignorant, Now, Steve Jobs didn't have the Holy Spirit to leave behind. That's where the church has a leg up on Apple. But that is the great patience of Jesus Christ, that what does He say? Well, at first, He is a bit exasperated. Philip, I've been so long with you, and yet you don't know me. How many times have I taught on this? But what does he do? He just, again, patiently teaches on this. Jesus is a great example of patience. And if you remember the teaching on the deity of Christ, he wasn't bailing out to his divinity. He was, as a man, trusting the Holy Spirit to be patient, the same way you and I trust the Holy Spirit. to be patient. In Romans chapter two and verse four, when Paul is rebuking some of the people in the Roman church for their impatience, he says, do you think lightly of the riches and kindness of God and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance? It's the kindness and patience of God which is the very reason why you're headed to heaven instead of headed to hell, so you would think that would make a big impact on Christians and just cause us to be people that are marked by patience, should be. but we grow cold to the gospel and we have that daily task of rewarming the gospel, heating up the gospel in our life so that we remember its power, we remember who we are, what we deserve, and why we've been saved, and the patience of God, and then once again, the evidence itself, and a patience toward others. Secondly, after love is patient, love is kind, and I'll just end with this one. Love is kind. What is kindness? Kindness is impartial tenderness, impartial tenderness. If I could give you one example of impartial tenderness, it would be Ruth, the book of Ruth in the Old Testament. Ruth was a Gentile Moabite. The Moabites were wicked people, but Ruth was a godly person, because Yahweh God had put his mark on her. Ruth was the daughter-in-law of Naomi. Naomi had three sons and three daughters, daughter-in-laws. She had a husband. And in a short period of time, all the men in Naomi's family died. All her son-in-laws died, her husband died, all the men died. And so there's no one to provide for their home, there's no breadwinner, there's a famine in the land, times are hard. This is during the time of the judges, this wicked, evil, murderous, pornographic generation, multiple generations that they lived in, a love story sort of blossoms out of this context. And so these are very, very difficult times, and Ruth basically says, you know, you ladies are Moabitesses, why don't you go back to Moab? Why don't you find yourself some husbands? According to the Leveret Law, if I had a son, well, he could grow up, and one of you could marry him, and he could take care of all of us, but I don't have a son, and I'm so old. If I were to have a son, well, you'd be old by the time he was of married age. It's just not gonna work out, just go back to Moab. And of course, two of the ladies do go back to Moab, But what does Ruth do? We have those famous words in Ruth 1.16. That's why she loved like this, because the love of Yahweh God was in her. And so she goes back with Naomi to Israel. There's no breadwinner, so immediately Ruth has to start working with the poor people. She's sort of gleaning the leftover wheat from the edges of the field. And a long story, awesome story, short, she providentially is led to the field of Boaz, who providentially happens to be a distant relative of Naomi. and by pursuing a marriage through him, because he's related to Naomi, he is legally obligated to take care of Naomi, not only his new wife Ruth, but he's obligated to take care of Naomi as well. Now if Ruth had gone back and just married the first guy that she fell in love with, There would have been no legal responsibility for the man she married to take care of her mother-in-law, who really wasn't her mother-in-law anymore, because the men had died and technically they were unrelated. So she has no ethnic responsibility to Naomi, because she's not a Jew. She has no legal responsibility, because that only existed when she was married to Naomi's son. She doesn't have any real responsibility, other than obviously that Christian responsibility we have, but no legal or ethnic responsibility, yet she goes back and she marries a man who is quite a bit older than her for the purpose of providing. for this dear mother-in-law that she loves. In Ruth chapter three, verse 10, when Boaz realizes what Ruth is doing, he says, may you be blessed of the Lord, my daughter. You have shown your last kindness to be better than the first. In other words, it was kind when you came back with Naomi to her land. But it is really kind that you would marry an old guy like me to take care of your mother-in-law. By not going after, he says, young men, whether poor or rich. So she has no obligation whatsoever but because of impartial tenderness. because of impartial tenderness, and maybe we can say sometimes in-laws are a little more difficult to love, depending on your in-laws, impartial tenderness toward them. Ruth gets her own book in the Old Testament, her own book right next to the book of Judges, which is the most unloving book in the Old Testament. So God loves that, God loves to exalt, He loves to praise, and He loves to honor impartial tenderness. And so we have all that truth packed in that little statement, 1 Corinthians 13, that love is kind, it's impartial, and it's tenderness to other people. May God give us the grace to love like this. Let's pray. Lord, I pray that you would teach us how to love. We're constantly bombarded with the culture's idea of love, this secular form of love, Lord, that is impure. Lord, teach us how you love. Teach us how Ruth loved. And may, God, we be individuals who are marked by this characteristic. You have told us in your word, they will know we are Christians by our love. In your name, amen.