1st Corinthians chapter 13 verses 1 through 3 It reads If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge and have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patience. Love is kind and is not jealous. Love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly. It does not seek its own. It is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth, bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails. Let's pray. Father God Almighty, we pray that You would teach us during this hour, instruct us in the way of love, warm our hearts to a deeper love for You and a deeper love for others. May Christ be our delight as we contemplate His example of love. I pray that You would move our hearts this morning for Your glory, honor, and praise. Amen. Someone has called 1 Corinthians 13 the greatest passage Paul ever wrote. Some would call this the greatest statement about love in human history. It has been called a hymn of love. It has been called a lyrical interpretation of the Sermon on the Mount and the Beatitudes set to music. Some liken it to a flower. But I would warn you that this is a flower that has razor-sharp petals, because it will cut us deep to the heart, and it gets really to the heart of the matter, the motives of why we do what we do. Love is the missing ingredient. Love is the key ingredient that is to motivate and move all the action that we do, whether it be love for God or love for our brethren. And this section in 1 Corinthians 13 speaks to that issue greater than any other. But we must set a little bit of the context of 1 Corinthians chapter 13, because the book of Corinthians was written in the context of much division, much argument. much bickering and quarreling in the church. Remember, some had said, I'm of Apollo, some had said, I'm of Paul. And Paul writes the beginning of 1 Corinthians and says that there are divisions among you, and these were not godly and right divisions. He also, when he gets to chapter 11, he's instructing them on the area of communion, and how they had botched the whole communion service, and how they were using it as a way to get drunk, and self-centeredness, and gluttony, even in the midst of the Lord's table. And then we have this context in 1 Corinthians 12-14. He's giving instructions on spiritual gifts. And they had botched spiritual gifts in a major way. Pursuing the showy gifts. Those gifts that would exalt themselves. Those gifts that would impress others. And in the context, in the midst of this section on spiritual gifts, Paul cuts right through this and says, you could have the greatest spiritual gifts in the world, but if you don't have love, It's a big, fat zero. It's nothing. In fact, 1 Corinthians 12.31 and 1 Corinthians 14.1 are kind of bookends on this section in 1 Corinthians 13. Let me read 1 Corinthians 12.31. It reads, "...but earnestly desire the greater gifts..." And then he says, "...and I will show you still a more excellent way." And then in 1 Corinthians 14, verse 1, it says, "...pursue love, yet desire earnestly spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy." So, to pursue love amidst spiritual gifts. And this is the most extensive section on love, really, in the entire Bible. And I believe it speaks of our love not only directed towards men, but also our love directed towards God. Often this section in 1 Corinthians is taken to almost assume to be dealing only with our love on a horizontal level. But I believe it also cuts to the level of our relationship with God. And I'll prove that to you very quickly. Look at verse 3 of 1 Corinthians 13. And if I give all my possessions to the poor, And then he says, if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Surrendering your body to be burned, an act of martyrdom. Usually that's not an act that would be directed horizontally towards other believers in Christ, but it's an act of love and devotion towards the Lord Christ. It's for the sake of truth, for the sake of His gospel, being willing to give up your own very life. So this would be an act of love directed towards God. So I believe Paul is addressing not only love on a horizontal level, but love on a vertical level between us and God. And so, we see the importance of love in this section of Scripture. And I ask you this morning, are you missing the key ingredient of love? Let's look first of all, that love without heavenly speech is annoying. Look at verses 1 and 2. Look at verse 1 in particular. He says, if I speak, With the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal." Notice throughout this section, he introduces it with an if. Or some translations may say though. It's a condition. He says in verse 1, if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels. Verse 2, if I have the gift of prophecy. Verse 3, and if I give all my possessions to the poor. And he's going to use ridiculous examples, far-fetched examples, and Paul is most likely using what we would call hyperbole in this section. The most ridiculous possible example without love is nothing. In fact, in verse 2 he says, If I have all knowledge, if I know all mysteries and have all knowledge, he's saying, in other words, if I'm omniscient, but don't have love, it profits nothing. And so we must understand that Paul is speaking in hyperbole, but he's making a very clear point. But also notice, he uses the first person singular pronoun, I. Look in verse 1, if I speak, Verse 2, if I have the gift of prophecy. Verse 3, and if I give all my possessions to the poor. He's using himself as an example. And this becomes very important because it's much easier to accept Paul's rationale in his argument as he applies it to himself. And it's a very subtle way of arguing his point. A kind of gently way of arguing this point. As he gently puts the noose around the Corinthians and then tightens its grip upon them. Because he uses himself as an example. If I do all this but don't have love, it's worth nothing. And how much more you Corinthians, if you do all this and don't have love, it's worth nothing. But then notice he says in verse 1, If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels. If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels. The gift of tongues. The gift of tongues was a gift of languages. A supernatural ability to speak a language that you do not know to a people who do understand that language. We see this gift pop up in Acts chapter 2. Remember on the day of Pentecost? Where they were able to speak in the language of all those different people groups. All those different Jews who had been scattered abroad. Who were proselyte Jews or who were Jews who had been scattered to other areas. And their native tongue was being spoken by these apostles. who never knew those languages. We see it also in Acts chapter 10 and in Acts chapter 19. This gift of languages, but more specifically in this context, we see Paul addressing the gift of tongues. Because the Corinthians, they love the gift of tongues. It was like the Mercedes-Benz of gifts. They would pull their Mercedes-Benz gifts right up in the front of the congregation so everybody could see their gift of languages. It was a way to put on a show. I mean, wouldn't that be cool if I could automatically speak Spanish just like that? If I could speak Farsi, if I could speak Mandarin, all these different languages without knowing. without ever having studied any of those languages. So you see, Paul brings in this example of tongues because they had elevated to such a high position, even though in 1 Corinthians 12, verse 30, when Paul mentions this gift, or in verse 28 of chapter 12, and God has appointed in the church first apostles, second prophets, third teachers, then miracles, then gifts of healing, helps, administrations, and various kinds of tongues. He specifically places it on lower on the scale so that they would understand that there is a kind of importance in gifts, although all gifts of the Spirit are important, but this is one of the lesser gifts. But the church in Corinth had made it the and all be all gift. When Paul gives instruction later on in 1 Corinthians chapter 14, he says in verse 4, one who speaks in a tongue edifies himself, but the one who prosphesies edifies the church. And I think he's speaking in a derogatory manner, that the person who speaks in tongues, they're just building themselves up. Spiritual gifts are always for the building up of the church, and that's why Paul argues, unless there's an interpreter, there cannot be no building up of other people, because nobody understands what language they're speaking in. And then in 1 Corinthians chapter 14, verse 10 through 14, he says, There are perhaps a great many kinds of languages in the world, no kind is without meaning. If then I do not know the meaning of the language, I will be to the one who speaks a barbarian, and the one who speaks will be a barbarian to me. So also you, since you are zealous of spiritual gifts, speak to abound for the edification of the church. Therefore, let one who speaks in a tongue pray that he may interpret, for if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful." Paul was instructing them, if they're going to use this gift of tongues, it must be for the edification of the church. But the problem is that they were using this gift not for the edification of the church, but for the edification of themselves, for building up themselves and exalting their own giftedness. This point that Paul makes came home to me crystal clear. I remember when I was in California, and we were meeting over Rosie Martinez's apartment. She had a little get-together, and she invited all these people over. She's our missionary who we support to New Mexico, or not New Mexico, to Mexico City. And there was a handful of Hispanic people there, and dear brothers and sisters in the Lord. And some of them spoke English very fluently, some didn't. And when we went to go pray, about half the people were praying in Spanish and the other half in English. And although I had three years of Spanish, I wasn't understanding anything they said. And I can remember the frustration involved because you know how you want to amen and affirm the things that other people are praying to the Lord, but I was unable to do so because I didn't understand what they were saying. And so, you can see why Paul argues that this gift is to be used for edification. And it's to be used with an interpreter because of that very point. But the church in Corinth had elevated this gift to an improper position. And they were exercising this gift without love. And then notice Paul says in verse 1, If I speak with the tongues of men, but then he also adds, and of angels. And that makes us scratch our head and say, what does he mean? Is there some kind of angelic language that Paul is speaking of? Probably not, because once again, Paul is speaking in hyperbole here. Just like there is no human being who is omniscient in verse 2, there is probably no angelic language, but maybe there is. And if anybody knew there was an angelic language, Paul would have known, because Paul himself was one who, according to 2 Corinthians 12, was caught up in the third heaven and was forbidden to speak of things that were unutterable. But regardless of whether it is, Paul is speaking of the greatest kind of giftedness that the Corinthians could have conceived of. And then notice he says, If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, the Mercedes-Benz gift of the Church and current, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or clanging cymbal. A noisy gong or clanging cymbal. The idea is of obnoxious sounds, irritating noises. I can remember when my sisters were first learning to play the flute. And although they probably didn't sound that bad, but I was a nasty older brother. And I can remember listening to them practice on the flute and it just sounded so loud and obnoxious. And then when they brought out the clarinet, which was even a higher, louder sound, it was just... Just the nauseousness that would bring to my ears. And of course, it wasn't that bad. And of course, there are excellent flute players today. But that's the idea, this obnoxious sound. And not only that, when he says in verse 1, I've become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. It's interesting that in the ancient world, the way that they would gather people together, was to bang these instruments for pagan worship, to gather people to the pagan temple. They would use these instruments and bang them to gather them. And can you imagine how that kind of sound must hear in the ears of the living God? That they gather people to worship not God the true and living God, but other deities. You see, friends, when our giftedness, when our great giftedness is exercised without love, it's just an obnoxious sound. And I remember when I was in seminary, and a man came and preached on this very passage. And as he was preaching on this passage, he brought out this and started banging it, banging it, banging it, banging it, banging it. Instead, man, this is what you sound like when you exercise your gift of preaching, but do not have love. And friends, this is us. This is the sound of us when we exercise our gifts before God, but they're minus love. This is how it sounds in the ears of the Almighty. It's an obnoxious sound that is not pleasing. to God, the living God. So we see how important this ingredient of love is, that apart from it, he says, it's just obnoxious sounds before God. The preacher D.L. Moody said, there's no use trying to do church work without love. A doctor, a lawyer may do work without love, but God's work cannot be done without love. Understand that there's many a things, many a professions that can be done without love. But ministering gifts in the body of Christ must be exercised with love or it's an obnoxious sound before God. So, we've seen That's without love, heavenly speech is annoying. But also, without love, knowing everything is no help. Look at verse 2. If I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am. Nothing. Love, without love, all knowledge, wrapped up in the gift of prophecy, knowledge of mysteries, knowledge of everything, exercising of faith, it's worth nothing. He says, he mentions the gifts of prophecy, and this was the gift that Paul highlighted as the important gift. When we move over into 1 Corinthians chapter 14, this was the most important gift, because this was most edifying. Because this was when a person would stand up and utter revelation from God, whether they were reiterating the revelation from the Bible or whether they were giving new revelation from God. This was the gift that was most edifying to the people of God. And Paul placed it as the most important gift as far as edification goes. And so we went from the most important gift that the Corinthians deemed, the gift of tongues, to the most important gift that Paul deemed, the gift of prophecy. And then he mentions not only prophecy, but a prophet, if he is a true prophet, he is one who speaks forth revelation from God. Notice verse 2. Not only if I have the gifts of prophecy, he says, and know all mysteries. Remember this term, mystery, when we were looking in 1 Timothy, when we were studying 1 Timothy, we saw that the term mystery is not how we often conceive of mystery. When we hear the word mystery, we think of a secret. It's something secret and mysterious. But in the Bible, when it speaks of mystery, it speaks of something that has been revealed. It's speaking of God's revealed Word. Whether that would come to the prophet in a direct revelation from God, or whether that would come to us from the pages of Scripture. He says, you can know all mystery, but if you don't have love, you're nothing. You can know great Bible, and we should seek to know great Bible, a lot of Bible. We should seek to marinate our minds with the Bible. We should seek to be diligent Bible students. But all the knowledge of God's mysteries, all the knowledge of His revelation, apart from love, makes you nothing. qualifies you for nothing. You could be like the Bible Answer Man, Siniquanon, the elite Bible Answer Man, the person who knows more answers to any question about the Bible than anybody else. Somebody who you could turn to any section of the Bible and you knew exactly what it meant, you knew the historical context, you could even talk about the Hebrew or the Greek or the Aramaic, whatever. But apart from love, It's nothing. Remember some months back, James White debated a man by the name of Dominic Crossan, and he said that this would be the most intelligent man he would ever debate. He said that this man knew his Greek New Testament inside and out. Was the most brilliant man that he would ever step forth and debate. And yet this man, though he knew his Bible inside out, he hates God. And he uses his understanding of the Bible to hack the Bible to pieces. You could have all knowledge, understand the Bible, all the mysteries, but if you have not love, you're nothing. You're nothing before God. And may I remind you of the one who has more theological understanding of the Bible than any human being that walks the face of the earth. Satan himself. He understands the Bible well. He's had thousands of years to study it. He understands the Bible very well. He went to the best theological training school in eternity. He was with God in eternity. So if you have Bible knowledge without love, you have been disqualified to the ranks of Satan. You see how important this is, friends? How important this key ingredient of love is. I'm not downplaying a right understanding of the Bible. I'm not downplaying spiritual giftedness. But what I am saying, if these things are exercised apart from love, it's nothing but a big fat zero. It's interesting here because he says, not only know all mysteries in verse 2, but in all knowledge. And this seems to be even a category that goes beyond revelation knowledge, knowledge of the Bible. Knowledge of God's Word, this seems to go even beyond to areas of all knowledge, whether it be science, whether it be art, whether it be history. And you can know all these things. But without love, Paul says, notice at the end of verse 2, I am nothing. Not just what I'm doing is nothing. I am nothing. Think about this, friends. You could preach with the eloquence of a Charles Spurgeon, with the passion of a George Whitefield, with the compassion and love of a Robert Murray McCain. Well, not the love of a Robert Murray McCain. The boldness of a John Knox. But all those without love, it's nothing. It's nothing to God. Or you can have the Bible knowledge of a John MacArthur. You can have the razor-sharp reasoning and logic of a Johnson Edwards. You can have the theological precision of an R.C. Sproul. All wrapped up into one person. Without love, it makes you a nothing. This is the key ingredient, friends. This is the essence of the Christian life. That's why it's so important and how tempting it is to seek to increase in our giftedness, increase in our understanding of the Bible, but to not exercise love in the process. to use our understanding of the Bible as a crown on our head so that everybody would see, or to use our understanding of the Bible as a cinder block to pounce on people's heads. No, friends, we must use the Bible as sweet medicine to help others out. We must not use the Word of God as a towel to suffocate others with. But it's a towel to wash their feet. Because if not, it's all useless. It's all nothing. So, friends, we must pursue greater love. We must beg God the Almighty, the Spirit of God, who says that one of His fruits is love. The fruit of the Spirit is love. We must beg the Spirit of the living God to give us an increased measure of love. Or else it's useless. And so we see that without love, heavenly languages are annoying. Without love, knowing everything is helpful to no one. And without love, all faith is useless. Notice the end of verse 2. The end of verse 2 says, "...and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing." Faith. It's probably the gift of faith that's mentioned in chapter 12 verse 9 when he says, "...to another faith by the same Spirit." The gift of faith. Although every believer is to exercise faith in the Lord, to trust and believe in Him, the Bible makes it clear that there is a gift of faith. In fact, Jesus Himself said in Matthew 17, 20, Because of the littleness of your faith, truly I say to you, if you have the faith the size of a mustard seed, you will be able to say to this mountain, move from here to there and it will move and nothing will be impossible to you. This is the gift of faith. The gift of faith that he's talking about. So that you could have this gift of faith and be able to even do something powerful and miraculous, even impossible, the faith to remove a mountain And he says, even this without love, it makes you nothing. This is so contrary to our normal thing. Normally when we think of somebody of great faith or somebody of great giftedness, we say, man, that's great. Wouldn't we want them to be in our church? And we should want them to be in our church. But Paul's cutting the foundation out from underneath all those gifts and saying, without the key ingredient of love, it's nothing. In fact, someone like George Mueller, who is noted as a man of great faith, he was a man who lived in Bristol, England in the 1800s, noted as a man of great faith. He started many orphanages. He did many great things for God. In fact, even on one occasion, it's told that there was no food to feed these orphans in this orphanage. And all the people were frantic. What are we going to do? How are we going to feed these people? How are we going to feed all these children? We don't have anything. And so George Mueller said, Well, let's just sit them down, all these children down at the table, at the breakfast table, and we're going to pray to God and thank Him for the food that He provides." And so they did that. And before too long, they heard a knock on the door. And it was a milkman whose milkman truck had just broken down. And he said, my milk's going to all spoil. Is anybody here who could use this milk? Of course, that was the prayer that they had been asking for. That was the prayer of thanksgiving that they had given to God. That was the provision that God had made. And George Whitefield exercised the faith and believed that God would provide, and He provided. And yet even that, even a man of great faith like that, if he did not have love, love for God, love for other people, His life was nothing. Nothing before God. Love is so very important. You can take the instance of the prophet Jonah. Remember Jonah himself? He was a man of great faith. In fact, he believed that God was a merciful God. He knew God was a merciful God. You get to the end of Job, and Job says, he reiterates, I knew, I believed that you were a God of mercy and compassion, and that's why I didn't want to go. I didn't want to go to these Ninevites, these wicked people, these people who were so evil and vile they would torture people to death. So evil and vile that they would cut off people's heads and make a mound of skulls out of them. And God told Jonah to go to Nineveh. But he went the opposite direction. He believed that God would be merciful. He believed in God's promise that He would grant mercy to those who repented. But he didn't love. He didn't love those people. That's why he didn't want to go. And so you can be a person of great faith, great belief, and yet without love, it's nothing. Paul throughout this section is showing how superior love is to everything. It's the very essence of our responsibility before Almighty God. In fact, he says on one occasion, In Matthew chapter 7, that many will say to me on that day, Lord, Lord, did we not what? Prophesy in your name. And in your name cast out demons. And in your name do many mighty deeds. But they didn't love. And Jesus says, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who work iniquity. So friends, the gifts of the Spirit are good, they're helpful, they're important, but love is that most essential ingredient. And any of those gifts, apart from the grace of love, are nothing. So we see that without love, heavenly language is annoying. Without love, knowing everything is not helpful to anyone. Without love, faith is useless. And now let's see, without love, great giving profits nothing. Look at verse 3. He says, If I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and then he says, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. Without love, great giving profits nothing. And notice when Paul says here, if I give all my possessions to feed the poor. It's interesting that the verb here that he uses for give is not just a kind of dumping all your possessions off in a rash decision. It's the idea of parceling out your possessions one at a time. It's the idea of feeding an infant one spoon at a time. Day after day, parceling out your possessions to one day, You don't have any. It would be if you went down to the bus station every day with a box of clothes, with a box of your own possessions, and just started giving them out every day until finally none was left. And he says, all that, without love, it profits nothing. We look at something like that and we say, Who gives like that? I mean, this is an act of amazing self-sacrifice. This is the highest call to discipleship, remember? Jesus, even with the rich young ruler, He said, sell all your possessions, give to the poor, and come follow Me. This is a great act of discipleship. Great sacrifice. And yet, Paul himself says, if this is done without love, it profits nothing. You see friends, giving to others without love towards them is just manipulation. Do you understand that? The outward show of doing kind things to others and it's not really out of love for them is manipulation because you're just using them for something that you want. It's like the politician. who kisses the baby on the camera. And once the camera lights go out, he says, let's get out of this dump. Or it's like Dante Culpepper, who some, I believe it was last year, during a press conference, they were asking him questions, and there was a man in a wheelchair who asked him about this gold and diamond lace chain that was around his neck, and he asked them to give him some of that. And so Dante Culpepper went over, took off the chain and put it on this man in a wheelchair. And then after the show was over, he went back and regretted his decision. And he said, can you give me that back now? You see, just manipulation, just for the show of others, just to get something that you want, it profits nothing before God. The Pharisees were experts at this, remember? We mentioned this last week. That according to Matthew chapter 6, they could give to the poor, but their giving to the poor wasn't out of love for God, love for His honor, but out of love for their own honor. They were fast, they would go through the religious motions, but it was void of love for God. And Jesus would say, what to them? They have received their reward in full. What was he saying? It profits nothing. Whatever they got, it was only in this lifetime. Whether it was the applause of men, they got it and they will get no more. And Paul in a similar vein says right here that giving all your possessions to the poor without love, you have received your reward in full. It profits you nothing. But also, Great acts of giving minus love for God is also an ugly thing. Great acts of giving minus love for others is manipulation. Great acts of giving minus love for God is like a man who kisses his spouse and thinks of another woman as he's doing it. He's going through the motions acting as if it's an act of love for his wife, but it's not really for his wife. Going through the motions, acting like giving is an act of devotion to God, the Almighty God. But in your heart, you know it's not for Him. The prophets condemned the Israelites for this. Open up the pages of Isaiah chapter 1. And the Jewish people were going through their religious feasts, their sacrifices. And God said that they were an abomination unto Him. And He likened them to Sodom and Gomorrah. Why? It wasn't out of love for God. They were just going through the religious motion, playing the religious game, void of love for God. So friend, I beg you this evening, let's open our eyes to see this key ingredient of love, that if it's not there, love for God and love for other people, everything we do is in vain. Let's seek to grow in this area, to increase our motivation of love, and to put aside other ulterior motives. So we see that the heavenly language without love is just annoying. That without love, knowing all things, profits no one. Without love, all faith is useless. Without love, great giving profits no one. And lastly, without love, Great suffering profits nothing. Look at verse 3 again. He says, if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. if I surrender my body to be burned." What is he talking about there? I think he's talking about the greatest act of suffering and sacrifice humanly conceivable. The act of giving your life as a martyr. The act of giving your life away for your faith in Christ. The greatest act of sacrifice. some object to this and say, well, the Romans hadn't started burning people alive yet at this point, but it would be only within 10 years that Nero would lace Christians with tar and post them as street lamps and burn them alive. And so no doubt, Nero was hardly an innovative kind of guy. This probably was in existence. But even in the Old Testament, we remember that Nebuchadnezzar threw Daniel's three friends into what? Into a fiery furnace. We also know historically that the Assyrians would burn people alive. And so I believe what Paul is talking about here is Christian martyrdom. This is staggering. I mean, any martyr of the Christian faith, we immediately regard as a hero. But we can only see the action. We can't see the heart. We can only see things from an external point of view. We cannot see what's going on inside the heart. And because of that, God is the one who knows the heart, is able to see whether that act is done, out of love or not. And it's interesting that not too long after the time of the apostles, as the Roman government was heating up persecution of Christians, many people began to realize that if you became a martyr, you were immediately reckoned as a hero of the faith. Immediately you gained popularity after your death. And so, people started to say, well, I want that. I want to be popular. I want to leave a name for myself, for my family." So they would voluntarily give themselves. And they had developed what has become known as the martyr's complex. They would give themselves, but it was not out of service to Christ. Thinking that there was extra rewards that were promised. It was not out of love for Christ. And God, through Paul, is saying that this greatest act of suffering, of even giving your own life, if that is done void of love for God, it profits nothing. It was an act in vain. You see how important love is. But also notice in this verse, in verse 3, he says, if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing. There's a couple things we can see here. That raw duty, raw action, void of love is worth nothing. So that love is not just an action. Or else 1 Corinthians chapter 13 verse 3 is a lie. That there must be more to love than just action. Because giving all your possessions to the poor, Paul says, it can be done without love. Because giving your body to be burned can be done without love. Those are great actions, great acts of sacrifice. And so there's many well-intending brothers in the Lord who teach that love is sheer action. But either 1 Corinthians 13.3 is right, or they're right. And my money is with God, rather than them, because God knows the human heart. But also there's something else here. that there is some self-interest in love. Notice he says this in verse 3, if I give my body to be burned but do not have love, what does he say? It profits me nothing. Often you will hear it heard that biblical love has no self-interest. It's pure altruism. You shouldn't enjoy it. You should just do it, and you can not like the person at all, not be happy about it, but just do it. Really. If I'm understanding this verse correctly, That there is an affectional element to love, there is a kind of self-enjoyment in love, and there is even a kind of self-interest. Now, it's not the kind of self-interest that is a selfishness, that does things apart from doing sacrifice towards others, because we see later on in the same chapter that love does not seek its own. Love is not selfish, love is not self-centered, but it is impossible to love without some kind of self-interest. I mean, that's why we choose what we do, because we always choose what we do, because that's what we want to do. That's what we desire most to do. And so, let me illustrate it like this. I'll steal this illustration from Piper. Imagine tomorrow afternoon, I go to the flower shop and buy a big bouquet of flowers for Bernie. And I tell her, sweetie, I love you and here's these flowers and there's nothing that I would enjoy more, nothing would make me more happy than if you spent the evening with me, if we went out to dinner and had a good time together. So will you go on a date with me tonight, sweetie? And what if her response is, well, you selfish jerk. It's all about your happiness, so this is what you would enjoy. This makes you happy. She wouldn't respond that way. Why? Because part of love is the enjoyment and the delight in the person, the object of that love. And so that there is an affectional and a kind of self-profit endeavor in this biblical love. We cannot neuter love of affection. We cannot neuter it of any kind of self-interest. We cannot make it sheer raw duty, or else it ceases to be biblical love. So we see how utterly important this concept of love is. Friends, let us get judgment day honest with ourselves and ask ourselves, why do we do what we do? Why do we do what we do? Do we do it out of love for God and love for others Or is there some other motive? Love for our own honor? Love for our own reputation? What we can get out of people? You see, this is so important. And I told you that 1 Corinthians 13 was a razor sharp flower. It cuts you to the core of your being. and forces you, drives you to examine your own love for others, your own love for God. And friends, if you're sitting here today and thinking, well, I'll just make up my love for God with more religious duty. I'll just perform more things. It can't be done. All the religious duty in the world minus love, this is what Paul is saying here, it profits nothing. And by the way, if you were to engage in such activity, that would be like seeing, well, I see that I don't love my wife, so let me just give candies and flowers to all these other women. You say, what? That's insane. That's insane. Who would do such a thing? But that's what we would do if we tried to engage in religious duty, because we're not doing it for God. If we try to engage in religious duty to make up for our love for God, Prophets nothing. It's useless. It's vanity. The Bible teaches that giving a cold glass of water to a disciple out of love is worth more than Christian martyrdom without love. That's staggering. Yet, if we don't understand this, we could be doing a lot of activity, and it not be driven out of love. So friends, I ask you this morning, let's get judgment day on us with ourselves. Let's examine our own selves and ask ourselves, do we really love God? Do we really love others? And how can we grow in our love towards God and love towards others? Well, it's not going to be pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. It's going to be begging God, the Spirit of God, the Spirit of love, to give you more love and to seek to cultivate a deeper love for God as you read His Word, as you see the example of Christ in His love for others. His amazing love for others. So examine your hearts this morning and see whether you do truly have a love for God in your heart. Ask yourselves hard questions. A question that I frequently ask, and I even do so to examine my own heart, is to ask myself if I could have all the benefits of heaven, all the goods of heaven, but God wasn't there. Would I still want heaven? Now, of course, the Bible doesn't give us that option, and there's a sense in which God and His graces are inseparable, but nonetheless, if you think about it, if I could get all the benefits of heaven, no more tears, no more pain, no more crying, no more death, no more suffering, and yet God wasn't in heaven, would you want to go? Would you want to be there? I mean, think of it. Try that on your neighbor. Say if you have a neighbor you've become friends with, become good acquaintances with, and you know that they have just a beautiful home, they have a hot tub, they have a swimming pool. And you tell your neighbor, call him up on the phone and say, hey Bob, what are you doing next week? I thought maybe our family could come over and we could go over your house and maybe the kids can swim and we could spend some time in the hot tub. And Bob says, oh, well, I'm not going to be there. And you respond, that's okay, just leave the key under the mat and we'll just have a good time. You know, it's okay that you're not there. What is Bob going to think? Is Bob going to feel the love? Is he going to think you're loving him? Or is he going to think that you just want his stuff? 1 Corinthians 16 says, if anyone does not love the Lord, let him be accursed. God wants us to love Him. He wants us to love others. He's given us the ultimate example of love. Because according to 1 John 4, verse 10-11, in this is love, not that we love God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be a propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. That the great reason, the ground, the motivation for our love for God is a bloody and crucified Savior. Because God initiated this love and He sent His Son to be executed for the wrath of Almighty God to be poured out on Him so that we could be forgiven and even forgiven of all of our loveless acts. all of our sheer hypocrisy before God, all of our manipulation of other people that's void of love for others and love for God. And so, my friend, I plead with you this evening, let us go to the cross afresh to the One who in His great act of love forgives all of our lovelessness. That is the only hope for our lack of love. Let's pray. Father God, we see how your word cuts us deeply, goes straight to the heart of the matter, calls us to love you and love others. God, forgive us for our loveless hearts. Forgive us for having a theology that's clear as ice, be it cold as ice. Forgive us for growing weak in our love and affection towards you. Forgive us for being cold and compassionless towards others. God, grace us this morning with a deeper spirit, infuse the love from on high. and will give you the glory, honor, and praise. In Jesus' name, amen.