work in a mighty way, through your spirit, all to the glory of Christ's name. Amen. You may be seated. Well, today is an important day in the life of Cross Creek. I'm sure many of you do not need to be reminded of that fact with the congregational meeting following this service. But I pray that it is marked by charity, by grace, but most of all, love. Now, what is love? I think that's an interesting question. There are many answers to that. In fact, Dr. Google turned up over 11 billion results, more than there are people on earth. Our reactions to love are varied. And perhaps some of you in here have already checked out because, yeah, yeah, I get it. I know all about love. I've seen this chapter. I know this chapter. I can kind of take a nap during service. Some maybe understand love only through a societal lens. Love is letting others be who they want to be. And sadly, for some, love may be a foreign idea. Hate is maybe what you've experienced most in your life. But I think the majority of us in here would say that we love well. Yet the concept is very pregnant with meaning. And even for us in the church, for those elected by Christ, love is infused with an understanding from culture, experience, scripture, our home life, our work life, and even capitalism. This confluence of meaning, I think, leads to a compartmentalized and conflated meaning and understanding of love. but Paul here is offering a corrective. It's easy to gloss over the beauty of Christian love, much less its preeminence for the believer. As we look at a very common passage today, become a student again of the uncommon love that is found in Christ Jesus, a love that is to mark his disciples. It's a love the world does not know and cannot know outside of Christ. This love, however, I think is antithetical to our nature. You only have to look at the Garden of Eden to understand that. And Paul here in the discussion of spiritual gifts in chapters 12 through 14, he pauses for a moment to address Christian love because he gives the balm for the discord that the Corinthian church was experiencing. The church members were a people of their time, just as we are. They were imbibed in a culture preoccupied with status, with honor, and with self-promotion. Whatever way one might gain influence or advantage over others, you should do that. That's what the Corinthian culture pursued. And this included manipulating or bending the truth or people to their own ends. Self-promotion leads to self-glory. But Paul is challenging that idea. Our text shows the Corinthian Christians were not immune to this, just as we are not immune to this in our culture. As the Holy Spirit gifts and equips people for God's glory and for the sake of the church, some use their gifts in a self-promoting way and even at the expense of others. The others who did not have these gifts would nurse, or they would lick their wounds. So it's very imaginable that discord would ensue. The application of this text, though, is not far from 21st century America. We too are preoccupied with wealth, with status, with honor, and self-promotion. Again, this is a problem that dates back to the Garden of Eden. Our sinful nature disorders our love, inflating the self over God and others. I think often we can use love as a veneer, just like a little nice piece of veneer on furniture. It looks good, but it can cover up our self-serving motives of our hearts. And may we see today that we are not above anyone, but rather we stand at the foot of the cross. Indeed, the love of Christ defines, regulates, and empowers our love. So as we read earlier in Matthew chapter 22 here, Jesus shows the supremacy of love, and Paul is even highlighting that more. So this first idea, the supremacy of love, first let's set the scene. If you look at chapter 12, verse 31, Paul says, So above all gifts, there's a more excellent way that Paul is going to teach us. We should perk our ears up and listen. Paul highlights these higher gifts in these first three verses. Tongues, prophecy, knowledge, faith, and generosity. These gifts are very public in nature. They brought honor and they brought recognition to those who had them. And in a church community, much less Corinthian culture, they became status symbols. I mean, you can think about it in terms of we esteem gifted astronauts, not the janitors at NASA. People challenged their, or Paul challenged their orientation of love. This is the very core of what he's getting at. Many were using their gifts with these self-glorifying motives. But at its core, love is selfless. And even more, it's an active self-emptying for others. Without love, our best work is invalidated. That's what it means, I have nothing, I gain nothing worthless. It's not valid without love. We cannot forego love. Look at the contrast Paul sets up here in verses two and three. If I have all this, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all, even my own body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. In the military and the corporate world, ability is rewarded. In time, you gain prestige, promotion, and wealth. But these things tend to self-inflate. Gifts, abilities, positions, all of these things are subservient to love. That's the point that Paul is making here. And as Calvin reminds us, as always very well, men have nothing good or praiseworthy except what comes from God alone. Love is preeminent. You can lay down your life, but without love you gain nothing. And all gifts are from God. And so is love. In fact, love's origin is founded in the triune God. Love existed before the foundations of the world. and it will exist for all of eternity. And because it's founded in the triune God, it is preeminent. Love is the currency and the economy of heaven. We just read Deuteronomy 6 and Matthew 22. Our primary call, summed up by Jesus himself, is to love God and love our neighbor, the two greatest commandments. Indeed, it was because God so loved the world, the same Greek word here, so loved the world that He sent His Son into it. And now the Son has given us the Holy Spirit to seal that love in us until the day of redemption. Christ possessed every single gift imaginable, but His love for us gained our adoption. His love appeared weak on the cross, but its strength is incomparable and eternal. Christ alone defines love for the Christian. Perhaps I gained, maybe as some of you, a perspective of this through my own mother. Children, as any parent can tell you, are born naturally selfish and sinful. I don't think I need to remind you parents of that. Maybe this morning you had some trials. They say, or perhaps scream, I want this, or that's mine, or they raise a hand to hit, or whatever it may be, some variation of this. They think of only their needs, when's my food, when's my snack, clean my diaper, you know, food in my belly, all of these things playing on their terms. That's what children are thinking about. And granted their needs do need to be met. But parents on the other hand, daily learn this preeminence of love. They're the ones cleaning dirty diapers, dealing with tantrums and irrational fears, and sleepless nights, and we could go on all day about the sacrifice parents make for their children. And perhaps some parents, like my mom, forewent going to the dentist or the doctor in order to provide shoes for us. You see, that is an active self-emptying of herself in order to give for us. And though a parent's ability, their gifts, their talents far exceed that of their children, they love their children, much like Christ's love for us, this sacrificial idea of love. And as we grow from infants into adults, as our children do the same thing, our love must mature as well. You see even this imagery used by Paul, And parents recognize this, and so too those long in the faith. These initial verses, verses one through three, are a corrective for our distorted vision of love, our heart motives. In any and every situation, we need to first speak and act through the lens of love. That should be our primary understanding of a situation. Now, this is easier certainly in some areas than in others, such as a certain way of doing things. Do the dishes go in the sink or on the counter? You put them in the sink again. Or a minor irritation that your spouse forgot something at the grocery store. These perhaps are stubbed toes but we can move on and forgive and love our spouse or others. But sometimes it's more serious like broken bones. Fellow believers who do not share your views on politics or the pastor or parenting. In these areas, we may use our gifts, our position, our influence to outmaneuver one another for our own purposes, which is self-glory over God's glory. Sometimes we might think, I would love them, but then I would lose something of myself. Yes, exactly, that's the point. Christ loved us and he lost himself to gain us in love. That's the beauty of the cross and Christian love. Love is inherently selfless and it's messy, just as a missed dental cleaning for shiny new shoes for a mother's son. So each of us in here would do well not only to remember Jesus's summary of the law in Matthew 22, but also express the substance behind it. which is the cross. Love poured out in Jesus's blood. Indeed, it's the same blood that binds us together, and we share the same spirit of Christ. The cross outshines any special gift, position, influence, or preference. Now, many in Corinth believed a gift elevated them, but Paul sharply reminds us that we kneel at the foot of the cross, not stand on top of the cross. Now, what's more is that we live, move, and have our being in Christ. Acts 17 tells us this. And spiritual gifts are to be used for the good of God's glory, for the benefit of the church. And I would say that's extended beyond just spiritual gifts to all of our talents, our resources, They're from God's providential hand. How dare we weaponize or boast in any gift that we have? The nature of a gift is that you did not have something, but it was given to you so you can take no boasting, no arrogance in that gift, because it's from God alone. The cross defines and demonstrates the supremacy of Christian love. We all fail in this, but Christ is with us. And I wanna encourage you to read Ephesians 3 or the Psalm passage. Pray these things and know that we're growing together. This is an act that we do as a body. We grow in love and maturity. So the second point, the breadth of love. So Paul here is giving the language in verses four through seven to contrast and to teach the way of a Christian's love. The structure and the words of the text, I think, lend more towards the action of love rather than a static understanding of love. It's like love is not a car sitting in the driveway, but one that's always on the move on the road. Look at the words that describe actions of love. Love is patient and kind, but it rejoices with the truth. Patience and kindness and rejoicing are not momentary matters. This is a heartbeat of love. And they are a fruit of love, just as Galatians 5 tells us and reminds us that the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, on. These things are getting at our heart motives and our desires. The breadth of love transcends every situation imaginable. In no circumstance can we forego love. Now look then on the other hand at the contrast Paul is using, the negative aspect, what is not love. Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful or rejoice at wrongdoing. Paul here is naming sin that each of us in this room can attest to, the sin in our hearts when we do not love. When any of these are present in our hearts, it's sin. Boasting or arrogance seeks self-inflation. Rudeness means behaving dishonorably towards one another. Irritation intends to provoke or stir up another person for ill, not for love and good works. Resentfulness is keeping count of wrongs, perhaps to use them at a later date to bring them back up for your purposes. And love certainly does not celebrate unrighteousness. And the power of love is, as one commentator put it, the absence of all limits. Verse seven shows the breadth of love is as wide as life itself. It bears, believes, hopes, and endures all things. No situation escapes the necessity to love. And here again, we can be reminded of love's origin, the triune God. Love bears all things just as Christ bore the cross. Jesus is the founder and the perfecter of our faith and our belief. And scripture also tells us that God is the God of hope and endurance. So when you need to love, go to the triune God, look to Christ, and there you will find the strength to love and bear with one another. Love covers, as Jesus's blood did for us, a multitude of sins. Now, while the challenge to love is as wide as life itself, I think marriage, perhaps, gets at the breadth a little bit. I think in marriage love is most beautifully and terribly displayed. Now we enunciate our love to our beloved through vows. Marriage vows include to love and sickness and in health and plenty and want and joy and sorrow as long as both shall live. Now for a newlywed couple, these are quite exciting words to express. But, you know, and your love does grow as the years go on, but also we realize the sin of not loving in our own hearts. And this is the tension and the intersection of love for myself or my spouse. I am willing to die for my wife. Absolutely, there is zero questions if I would die my wife. No position, goods, or sickness will limit or diminish my love for her. Love bears, believes, hopes, and endures all things. But on the other hand, and I have been guilty of this, We may want to keep count of hurtful things a spouse may have said or done. We know exactly when, where, and how to poke our spouse, to provoke them to something. Or we may give the silent treatment, and that certainly insists on your own way. And maybe a spouse's repetitive failure has exhausted patience and kindness. So marriage, again, I think highlights the beauty, the ceiling of what love can be, but then we can also not love well. So I hope this gives a little bit of an illustration to show how difficult it is to love, even the person that you've covenanted with, to love. And this text challenges us, reminding us that love regulates our motives, not deceitful or duped means. Now, I think, honestly, it is easy to have the appearance of love, even if the intent, the underlying motive in our heart is for the self. Now, some are not so nefarious, such as kindness towards a Chipotle worker with the intent that they load up your bowl, or being a team player at work so that all speak highly of you to your boss. which can tend towards a promotion or bigger paycheck. I obviously put that in there because I realize sometimes that is my motive with a Chipotle worker. Now, only God can discern our hearts though, but sometimes motives which have the appearance of love are more sinister at heart, such as slander about our neighbor. Perhaps it's a family member or coworker we dislike for whatever reason we've come up with. Maybe resentment or self-glory or irritation. Whatever it is, from this position, we may then plot a path that seeks not just to discredit them, but actively seek their harm. That is what these words in 1 Corinthians 13 get at. Our flesh can easily lead our motives astray. This is sin, not love. It breaks both tables of God's law. God, because of the cross, never seeks our harm now because of what Jesus has done, but he always seeks his glory our good? And how can we possibly do anything less for our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus? Now in the military we are told at times, don your equipment, which means to put on. That's what don means here, it's not a person. And if we remember Colossians 3 says, put on then as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another. And above all of these, put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony. This is especially true here in the church, which is the bride of Christ. Do you labor? and bear alongside those who have sinned against you? Do you believe and hope that God is mightily at work in the person to your left and to your right? I think perhaps endurance is maybe the hardest. We can bear with someone for a time, we can hope, we can believe, but endurance is certainly challenging. This may be in our marriage. Maybe it's a husband or a wife who is slow or reluctant to change. Or maybe it's a child who you've raised in the faith, but they've drifted far away from what you have taught them. Will sin impede your love for these people? Even in this room, we've sinned against each other and have different visions for the future of the church. But does your love for each other bear, believe, hope, and endure all things? Dear friends, we love because he first loved us. Now lastly, the telos of love, verses eight through 13. So telos is the Greek word which means an outcome or a conclusion. For science nerds, maybe telomere. It's the end of a chromosome, if I said that correctly. Paul here is grounding his argument in the eternal nature of love. Verse eight says, love never ends. This might also be translated, will never pass away. So he starts with that, and then we see that he says these other things will pass away. but love remains for all of eternity. Hence the charge to love. And guess what? When we love one another, we rehearse eternity. Might as well get some good practice in now. Sin will never be completely removed while we're here on earth, but love will be the economy that we have in heaven. Now Paul here uses two analogies. First, just as a child grows from an infant to an adult, so too should our love mature as we mature in the faith. This is the process of sanctification. And secondly, he uses the imagery of a mirror. Now, I'm certain that many of you looked in a mirror this morning and you saw a very clear reflection of yourself, but that's not a first century mirror. Mirrors were perhaps made out of as shiny as they could get it, maybe some bronze or other metal that would give them a dim reflection of what they looked like And these mirrors showed an indirect knowledge of what one looked like. And so too is our knowledge, our love, and our other gifts that we have. But then in 12 and 13, and these are beautiful verses, we see the telos, the conclusion of our love. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. then I shall fully know even as I have been fully known. So the end of our love is Christ Jesus himself. One day we shall see the face of love. Seeing Jesus face to face is the outcome. It's the end of our love here that we have expressed on earth. He fully knows us, so one day we will know the fullness of Christ. And this highlights the intimacy and the access that we have to God as well. God will be our God and we shall be his people. The economy of heaven runs not on the currency of self, but on the currency of love. And we not only rehearse eternity and loving others and God, but it also helps his kingdom come, his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Christ empowers our love through the Spirit. So then finally, as verse 13 shows, faith, hope, and love abide. But the greatest is love. Because faith and hope will reach their fulfillment either upon our death or upon Christ's return. But love remains for all of eternity. Here in a few weeks, we'll have Labor Day. And seven years ago, my dear granny died. She passed away. It was unexpected, but she was gifted in many ways. She was actually a teacher, but she spent much time teaching us grandchildren. She loved, she served, she was good at administration, many things. She did well, and in countless ways, her love excelled above all else. Love marked the contours of her life, and love was her legacy. She rehearsed this love more and more up until the day of her death. And the love that she gave while on earth left a kingdom impact for God's glory. But when she died, she came to the telos, to the end, the conclusion, the outcome of what she rehearsed on earth, the Lord himself, seeing the face of love for all of eternity. Her faith and her hope were fulfilled that day, and she practices now love perfectly for all of eternity. What beauty. One could say the same of our recently departed brethren, Tim Keller and Harry Reader, or perhaps you know of a not well-known saint where they love is their legacy. And may we take encouragement from these saints in the faith, whether well-known or not so well-known, those who have gone before us. When we become a new creation, we no longer operate in an economy where the GDP is the self. As co-heirs with Christ, we operate in the economy of love. Now each of us in here imbibe culture's performance-driven, self-promoting, and authentic living self of our culture. That's what culture seeks to imbibe. And yet we're called by God to do the opposite. Use our gifts and our talents in and towards the end of love. And the Spirit empowers us to do so. This is far reaching from dropping off a meal at a friend's home. Or it's the forbearance, patience, and kindness towards a loved one suffering through dementia or cancer. Again, love is endurance. So what is your purpose in serving others? What is the motive behind our words and our actions? And I would ask you to examine that on a daily basis, because as the body of Christ, love is the gauge of our economy. And for those who are difficult to love, Katie would probably say, me at times, Maybe it's a friend or even someone else in this room. I think C.S. Lewis offers a practical help. He says, don't waste your time bothering whether you love your neighbor. Act as if you did. And as soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you love someone, you will presently come to love him. And for those in Christ, we also, our hearts have been changed. So behavior and our heart comport to love one another. The root issue in not loving one another is pride. It began in the garden, Adam and Eve wanted autonomy, which literally means self law, rather than God's law. Pride places the self above all else. But the cross reverses this. Our love is now ordered towards God and others. And we are bound in love as God's people. But when we're entrenched on a certain side of an issue, it encourages not love and unity, but battle lines. When we tear down others with our words, even in private, we stain the name of Christ whose blood stamps us. We are to champion love to everyone, but especially those in the household of faith. Psalm 133 says, behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity. And may we treasure this goodness and experience this pleasure by dwelling in unity. May we love one another. bearing, believing, hoping, and enduring all things for the sake of God's glory and our neighbor's good. Of all the things we may fail to do, may love not be one of them. Today, as this body proceeds to vote, I remind you that our Lord Jesus Christ is the head of the church. No one can assail his headship. I also want you to look to your left and to your right. These are your brothers and sisters by blood. We are the blood bought lambs of Christ. He purchased you in love for love. Each of you here have the obligation to love one another regardless of where you stand today. The cross compels us to do this. May all that is said and done this day reflect our unity in Christ and love for one another. This testifies to our king and it rehearses what we will do for all of eternity. Let's pray. Father, we thank you for this well-known passage, Lord, your word about love to us. We thank you that your love has most powerfully and beautifully been displayed through the cross of Christ. Lord, you are also intimately aware that this is perhaps the most challenging thing in our walk with you, is to love you and our neighbor well. So I pray that by the power of Christ and the Holy Spirit, that you would be with us, not only as we enter the meeting after the service, but also in our living and our breathing and our moving every day. May we love one another, for this is what you called us to. So challenge us, convict us, encourage us where we need it in regards to loving. And we thank you for this love that we know through Jesus Christ our Lord. And it's in his sacrificial name we pray, amen.