Love Is This

1 Corinthians 13:1-3 | July 19, 2020

What is your favorite breakfast food?

Are you a bacon and eggs guy?

Or a bagel and cream cheese gal?

Or a pop-tart kid?

Or a cold pizza college student?

There’s an old song that says…

Song

Love my wife and love my baby

Love my biscuits sopped in gravy

That’s an interesting order of love, right?

• Wife
• Baby
• Gravy

At least gravy wasn’t first. 

But more and more we seem like we are like that when it comes to love – we put family and gravy in the same category. 

Or as another old song said, “Love don’t mean a thing.”

But we know that’s not true.

I was reading this week about a man who was unloading to one of his mentors the ugly story of a difficult mess he was in the middle of and when he got through unloading his stress his mentor simply said, “I just want you to know that I love you.”

And the man said just hearing that had a huge impact on him.

Now I’m not trying to be all Sappy Sammy here and say that what you really need is someone to hold you and tell you everything’s going to be alright.

I’m just saying you have to be an ignorant egomaniac or a stubborn fool to deny or ignore your need for love or deny or ignore your need to give love.

But what kind of love?

Today we begin an adventure in the place in the Bible known as 1 Corinthians 13.

Everybody from Antony and Cleopatra to Posh and Becks to Shrek and Fiona have probably used some of the words of 1 Corinthians 13 in their wedding, but it’s not just for weddings.

About 1,900 years ago the Apostle Paul wrote the words of chapter 13 to folks in the Greek area known as Corinth.

Now you might be thinking…

“What in the world does some old letter written to folks in ancient Greece have to do with the chaos of the world in 2020?”

Well, listen to this quick bio on the lifestyles of the people of Corinth…

Ron Ritchie

…impatience, unkindness, jealousy, boasting, arrogance, shamefulness, selfishness, touchiness, harboring grudges over wrongs done, resentfulness, and malice.

Yep, we definitely don’t have any of those things in our homes or our churches or our school boards or our state houses or our job places or our social media feeds, right?

There’s no way Paul’s advice for those things could be any help to us today, right?

British evangelist Alan Redpath once said that the light and heat of chapter 13 was so powerful that you could get a spiritual suntan from soaking up its rays. 

So, it’s summer, let’s see what we can soak up. 

Listen to 1 Corinthians 13, beginning with verse 1…

1 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.

What are the tongues of men and of angels?

Well it is more than a southern accent. 

The language here is supernatural in nature. 

What does that mean?

Well, the meaning of tongues in the Bible is generally interpreted or applied in one of 3 ways – I emphasize these are general categories…

The first goes something like this, tongues are the supernatural ability to be able to speak or interpret one or more or many different languages and/or dialects. 

That doesn’t mean that a person took a bunch of Rosetta Stone classes at their church on Wednesday nights – it is a normal or sudden supernatural ability to interpret other people’s languages.

The second would be some kind of supernatural language that only God or angels would be able to understand without some other person being able to provide some kind of supernatural interpretation. 

The third would be some kind of non-supernatural gibberish in some kind of religious meeting that is most likely fueled by strategic greed or emotional fuzzies.

Again, general categories.

Whatever category or categories you might lean toward is not the primary focus of what Paul is saying.

You can speak with the theological excellence of Martin Luther or Jonathan Edwards, but if you don’t have love you are nothing more than a chain-rattling, arrogant detailer of doctrine.

Or you can speak with the charismatic sincerity of the Angel Gabriel, but if you don’t have love you are nothing more than a noisy, potentially misleading, describer of distraction.

Or you can speak with the energetic holiness of a street-preaching superhero, but if you don’t have love you are nothing more than a loud-mouthed, clanging superzero.

In the next chapter, 14, Paul says something interesting…

1 Corinthians 14:27

If anyone speaks in a tongue, it should be by two or at the most three, and each in turn, and one must interpret;

1 Corinthians 14:28

but if there is no interpreter, he must keep silent in the church; and let him speak to himself and to God.

It seems that Paul is saying that if you are living out some aspect of your spiritual freedom, but it is distracting people from the gospel it is not loving – it might sound super spiritual, but it is a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

In Luke 18 Jesus told the story of a super religious person and a tax collector typically known for their greed.

They are both at church and they are both praying. 

The super religious person was praying during the Sunday morning service and he stood on the stage and boldly affirmed how he had been so pure in his doctrine that week and stayed away from sinners and spent his time discussing theology with his friends on Zoom calls. 

But the tax collector was repentant and sat off to the side of the pew and couldn’t lift his head because he was so overwhelmed with how rebellious he had been toward God’s grace that week and silently screamed out to the Lord to have mercy on him.

• The first guy was a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal
• The second guy was being moved by love

What kind of love?

Well, the Greeks had 4 different ways they described love. 

• There was intimate love
• There was family love
• There was friend love

Those are not the kinds of love Paul is talking about here.

He’s talking about the fourth kind of love which is known as agape love.

Agape love is self-denying love.

Agape love keeps loving even when the love is rejected.

Agape love is when you choose to give value to another person not because they are like you or because they agree with you, but you give value to that person because you choose to.

And why would you choose to give value to another person?

• A person that doesn’t agree with your theology?
• A person that doesn’t vote for the same candidate you vote for?
• A person that doesn’t agree with your pandemic opinions?

Why would you choose to love a person like that?

This is what Jesus said…

Matthew 22:39

You shall love your neighbor as yourself.

There’s a period on the end of that sentence. 

It wasn’t meant to be a suggestion. 

So, what does it look like to love your neighbor in July 2020?

No different then it did in ancient Greece or ancient Rome or the garden of Eden.

The following has long been a helpful way to get my mind thinking right about what it means to love your neighbor.

John Piper

…it seems to demand that…all the longings that I have for my own safety and health and success and happiness I now feel for that other person as though he were me.

At first glance that looks and sounds more like friend love – longing for good things for other people.

But loving your neighbor in the same way you love yourself is a good fuel for agape love because it turns our focus away from ourselves – a self-denying love. 

Unless it’s Jeopardy, I hardly ever watch TV and I’m not on social media much, but in my little bit of a glimpse of news media and social media there’s not a lot of self-denying love out there.

Now, before you nod your head with some kind of mental rant on the mainstream media, consider your own main streams of media this week. 

Consider your posts from this past week – how much self-denying love was there?

Or consider some of your phone conversations or some of your texting conversations or maybe some of social-distancing or non-social distancing conversations this week – how much self-denying love was there?

We are quick to rail, but we are slow to reflect. 

We are quick to criticize what everyone is doing from Washington to Wal-Mart, but we are slow to look in the mirror.

1 Peter 5:5

…God is opposed to the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

If you can speak in religious language that sounds like the angels of heaven are talking but do not have love, you sound loud and arrogant and annoying and God might be opposing your words.

Let me stop for a moment and just remind our hearts that we are not talking about perfection.

I have not shown perfect agape love this week. 

Like most of us I am overwhelmed and struggling and I’ve had my first couple of meltdowns this week that were more agrumpy than agape.

None of us are perfect, but what is the normal pattern of how we do life?

Inside a pandemic and outside of a pandemic – is there evidence of self-denying love in your life?

If you profess to be a Christian, there has to be some evidence.

If there’s not, then there is a good change you are a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

So, let’s quit our Chuck Barris impersonations and pray that God would humble us and help us to love. 

Paul really wants us to do that, so, he gives us some more word pictures here…

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.

Can you imagine having faith to move a mountain?

I mean I don’t have enough faith to move that 5^th doughnut away from my mouth and back into the box.

But feel the punch of this – you can have the kind of faith that on the surface looks to be doing amazing, miraculous things like moving mountains.

But without love someone has said you will end up dropping those mountains in the middle of the road people are using to get through life or you might drop those mountains right on top of people.

Without love, speaking in supernatural, spiritual language is nothing. 

Without love, prophesying and preaching and understanding the deeper things of theology and having faith that seems to perform miracles – those things are nothing.

Are you hearing the alternative vibe that’s on the other side of all of this nothing?

Love is everything!

Love is everything – without it you got nothing.  

If I can pick apart the CDC’s numbers and call foul on all the statistics but do not have love, I got nothing. 

If I can dissect and deconstruct the quotes of politicians and pastors and school board members and doctors and parents and anyone who doesn’t agree with me and show their flawed thinking but do not have love, I got nothing.

Paul’s not done yet, though.

In case this message hasn’t captured us yet, he’s going to hit us in the one place that always gets our attention.

3 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.

Now Paul hits us in the debit card.

This really is a wild way to press us deeper.

If you could donate enough food to wipe out hunger but do not have love, you gain nothing. 

If you could donate enough money to wipe out every plague and pandemic but do not have love, you gain nothing.

If instead of getting on social media and ranting that you are losing your religious freedom you were actually burned at the stake for standing firm in your religious views but you do not have love, you gain nothing. 

If we are honest, that sounds like the super craziest thing we’ve ever heard, right?

Is Paul saying that we shouldn’t give money to the poor and shouldn’t give money to missions and shouldn’t give money to the church and shouldn’t stand up for biblical truth?

No, that’s not what he’s saying at all.

He is simply uniquely expanding on the words of Jesus.

This is what Jesus said…

Matthew 16:26

For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?

The answer to those two questions is “nothing”.

What if you were to gain:

• Clean water for the whole world
• Induction into the honor society
• The winning shot of the game
• A new smartphone
• A pay raise
• Better healthcare coverage
• Escape from a natural disaster
• Survive a car accident
• Beat a terrible disease

But things between you and God are not right.

What have you gained?

Some really, really, really good things!

But some good things that will only last until you eventually die.

Someone might be thinking…

“Well, thanks for that shot of good news, preacher!”

But Jesus is saying that the greatest profit in this world, even it is something that looks good like speaking in tongues or understanding theological mysteries or faith that moves mountains or giving your money and stuff away to people in need or even physically enduring torture or death for your faith, those things are nothing without the love that comes from eternal life. 

That last part is kind of a big deal.

Let me repeat a super important truth we mentioned last week. 

Please engage with this…

Jason Meyer

The glory of God and the pride of man will collide at one of two crash sites: hell or the cross. Either we will pay for our sins in hell or Christ will pay for our sins on the cross.

You cannot have agape love unless you collide with the cross. 

The beauty of the tragedy of the cross is that Jesus on purpose loved you and gave himself up for you so that you might be able to own and enjoy and embrace the ultimate answer to everything.

What is the ultimate answer to everything?

It breaks own like this…

• I am saved
• I am being saved
• One day I will be ultimately saved

Salvation and through Jesus Christ is the only way to find and have and use and enjoy agape love.

Without Christ you have no salvation and no true, lasting love.

With Christ you have everything because salvation in Jesus becomes the ultimate answer to every single moment of your life.

When you collide with the cross you are ultimately colliding with the greatest moment of love that has ever existed. 

And that kind of love demands something of you.

Isaac Watts

Love so amazing,

so divine

Demands my soul,

my life, my all

So, what can you do with the love of Christ today?

Well, first, don’t leave these things on the live stream. 

Take Paul’s challenge and do something with it today.

Love is everything.

Eugene Peterson developed a paraphrase of the Bible known as The Message.

There are times that I think his word choices are helpful triggers for our minds to take timeless truths and engage a little more.

So, let’s engage with these thoughts from Paul again…

Eugene Peterson

If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don’t love, I’m nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate.

Eugene Peterson

If I speak God’s Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, “Jump,” and it jumps, but I don’t love, I’m nothing.

Eugene Peterson

If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don’t love, I’ve gotten nowhere.

Eugene Peterson

So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.

Bankrupt without the grace and mercy and love of Christ.

Rich with the grace and mercy and love of Christ.

Which are you today?

Bankrupt or rich?

With Christ or without Christ?

During the 17th century, Oliver Cromwell, Lord Protector of England, sentenced a soldier to be shot for his crimes.

The execution was to take place at the ringing of the evening curfew bell.

But the bell didn’t ring that night. 

The soldier's fiancé had climbed into the belfry and clung to the great clapper of the bell to prevent it from striking.

When she was summoned by Cromwell to account for her actions, she was weeping and severely bruised and bleeding.

Cromwell's heart was moved, and he said, “Your lover shall live because of your sacrifice. Curfew shall not ring tonight!”

Look, I’m not saying you have to go get bruised and bleed.

I’m just asking this…

How do we know what love is?

Jesus has clung to the clapper of death’s bell for your sin.

That’s how we know what love is.

Love is everything.

Love is everything.

Message by Dow Welsh |

July 19, 2020 © Holland Avenue Baptist Church

 

more |

Above are pre-sermon manuscript notes, not sermon transcript

Sermon scriptures NASB unless otherwise noted

Lots of help from many pastors and theologians

Weekly help from Bruce Hurt at www.preceptaustin.org

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CgVAHA-vtfI

 

So what's your favorite breakfast food? Are you, uh, bacon and Eggs guy? Or maybe you're a bagel and cream Jesus gal. Maybe you're a pop tart kid. Sure your vibe. Maybe you're a cold pizza college student. There's an old song that says this Love my wife. I love my baby Love My biscuits stopped in gravy. It's an interesting order of love, right? Wife, baby gravy. I mean, the good thing is, at least the gravy wasn't first, right? But, you know, if if we're honest, that is often times the way we approach love these days, you know, our love seems to be marked by putting family and gravy in the same conversation. Well, we seem to have belittled the majesty of love in some way as another old song says, Love don't mean a thing. We've less in love a little bit, But love doesn't mean a thing like we know that right? Love does mean something. I was reading a story this week about a man who called one of his mentors, and he was telling his mentor his story. This Messi was in this difficult, hard mess and he was going through all the details all the ugliness of what was happening. And when he got through, his mentor just looked at him and said, Look, I just want you to know that I love you and the man said he just wasn't prepared for how much it impacted him just to hear those words I love. I love you. Look for our church family. I just want you know that. Did I do I love you? I am. I am justices, flustered and frustrated with everything that's going on. And I promise we're doing everything we can to do justly to love mercy and to walk humbly with God. But I just want to be sure because I've prayed this for you all week long. I just want, you know, wherever you are, whatever is happening that I do love you. I'm I'm not the only one. Love is true love. Israel. No, Look, I'm not trying to say that, you know, we need to be sappy, Sami. And you know, all you really need is someone to hold you and tell you that everything's all right. That's not what we're talking about here. But you would have to be an ignorant egomaniac. or a stubborn fool to deny or ignore your need to give love and your need to receive love. You need love, you need to receive it and you need to give it. What kind of love are we talking about? Well, this morning we begin an adventure in the place and the Bible known his first Corinthians 13. Now everybody from Antony, Cleopatra, Toe Posh and Becks Toe. Shrek and Fiona have probably used some of the words of first Corinthians 13 in their wedding ceremony. But this is not just wedding words. About 1900 years ago, the Apostle Paul wrote the words of Chapter 13 to some folks in ancient Greece in a place called Core in. Now someone might be thinking when the world to some old letter from ancient Greece have to do with the chaos of the world. In 2020 serious, we're going to pull out some old book and try to find some advice for a modern pandemic. For a modern economy that sounds a bit foolish. Well, listen to just this brief bio on the lifestyles of the people of court. Okay, if you can make any connections their lifestyles remarked with patients unkindness, jealousy, boasting arrogance, shameful nous, selfishness, touchiness, harbouring grudges over wrongs, done resentful nous and malice. Yep, nothing there for us, right? None of those things are anywhere in our homes, our in our churches or in our statehouses, or are school boards or our job places or anywhere else, right? I mean, none of those things are around in 2020 right? I mean, surely this advice that Paul had for things like that will not help us today. Hopefully, you're picking up on my sarcasm just a little bit. British evangelist Alan Redpath once said that the light and heat of Chapter 13 the first Corinthians light and heat, was so powerful that a person can get a spiritual sun tan from just soaking up its truth. So this summer, we'll see how much weaken soak up of this truth. First Corinthians Chapter 13 beginning with verse one, Paul writes. If I speak with tongues of men and of angels but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging symbol. So what are the tongues of men and angels? Well, it's more than just a Southern accent. There's more to it it's it's supernatural in nature. And so, generally speaking, I'm just going to come throughout three categories of how people look, a tongues and the the teaching of tongues and the Bible general categories. The first someone would be along these lines that the tongues in the Bible is when someone is supernaturally able to speak or understand, interpret or translate a people's language or a dialect that they are not normally. But maybe suddenly, or maybe normally as a pattern, that they have this supernatural ability to understand other languages. Not that they took a bunch of Rosetta Stone classes on Winds United Church, but there is something supernatural about their ability to understand languages. They don't speak, and they're able to speak them, interpret them, translate them something for the good of others. And for the good of the gospel. That's that's kind of one category. Another category is that there is the supernatural language that only God or angels could understand, and the only way a human could understand it is if someone else supernaturally interpreted that language. Okay, so a super natural language that requires supernatural interpretation. Otherwise, it's only something that God would understand kind of second category again, these air general and then 1/3 category would be more like gibberish. That is non supernatural that is used in the middle of a religious service, usually fueled by strategic greed or emotional fuzziness. Okay, so just three categories there. Interpreting speaking languages, supernatural language not understood by humans or just a bunch of gibberish for the sake of being gibberish or showing all from, however you want to say it. So just kind of three categories like that now. Whichever way you may lean toward any of those interpretations, none of those interpretations are what Paul's specifically talking about. What Paul is saying is this. Take any of them, and if you don't have love, they're a bunch of John, but they're useless. So if we were to break that down in those categories, let's just say that that you could speak with the theological excellence of Martin Luther or Jonathan Edwards. But if you don't have love, then you're just a chain rattling, arrogant detailer of doctrine. Or maybe let's say that you can speak with the charismatic sincerity of the angel game. But if you don't have love, then you're just a A noisy, potentially misleading describe er of distraction. Or maybe you can speak with the holy sounding authority of ah, excited, street preaching superhero. But if you don't have love, then you're just a loud mouth claim super zero. So let's just kind of think for just a little bit in the next chapter. Chapter 14 Paul sayss, something kind of interesting. First Corinthians Chapter 14 Verse 27 he says If anyone speaks in a tongue, it should be about two or the most three and in each turn, and one must interpret Verse 28. But if there's no interpreter, he must keep silent in the church and let him speak to himself and to God. So without completely unpacking, this just kind of a surface picture is it seems as if, Paul saying, If you using your perceived spiritually freedom, distract somebody from the Gospel, then stop. That's not loving. Don't don't distract people from Jesus. It might sound super spiritually. What you're doing might look super spirits. It might make you seem like you're connecting with the angels, but without love you are a noisy gone and a clanging show. Luke. Chapter 18 Jesus told the story of a super religious person and a tax collector, tops collectors usually known for being super greedy. And the super religious person and the tax collector were both at church praying. And let's just say it was Sunday morning and the super religious person boys, he's on stage. He's going, you know, boy, his prayers. It's loud. And he's talking about how how pure he has been in his doctrine. All week long, he's talking about how he's stayed away, distanced himself from the truly sinful people, and he spent all of his time discussing theology on zoom calls with his friends. What's very, very important. But the tax collector can't even lift his head up. He's he's repentant. He's so overwhelmed when he begins to consider how much he rebelled against the grace of God just that week and he's begging God for mercy. The first guy, his prayer. It was a noisy gong and claiming, simple second guy tax collector. He was praying out of love. Love what kind of love? Well, the Greeks had four different ways that they talked about love. There was intimate love, There was family love and there was a friend love now none of those of the love that Paul is talking about. Paul's talking about what's known as a got a love got ta love is a self denying love. It's a love that when it's rejected, it keeps loving like it. It doesn't stop you got they? Love is a love that you choose and you're choosing to give value to another person, not because they're like you, not because they agree with you, but but you're choosing to give value to them because of something else. Now, why would you do that? Why would you choose to give someone love like there's not a reason for you to give them love, But you choose to value them. You you choose to give them love, even if they're somebody that does not agree with your theology, you choose to value them. You choose to give them love. Even if they don't vote for the same candidate that you vote for, you choose to value them. You choose to give them and show them love. Even if their opinions of the pandemic are different than yours. Now, why would you do that? Why would you choose to give love to someone? Why would you choose to put value on someone who is not like you or who doesn't agree with you may be on anything. Why would you do that? This is what Jesus said. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. There's a period on the end of that sentence if it wasn't meant to be a suggestion. So how can you love your neighbor in July 2020? How do you do that? Here's thing. You do it the exact same way they did in ancient Greece in ancient Rome. And if you are in of Eden and any other time in history, it's the same now. Over the last 15 20 years, there's this kind of simple definition that has always helped me and moving my mind and heart to be triggered and to engage more with what it means to love your neighbor. It goes like this, John Piper writes. It seems to demand that all the longings that I have from my own safety and my own health and moan, success and my own happiness, I now feel for the other person as though he were me not first glance. That kind of sounds like family love our friend love, right? I mean, you're warning good things for other people. But the reality is this. This picture is good fuel for a cop love because it moves us toward self denial. It moves us toward not looking at ourselves and looking to someone else. You know, Let's just jeopardy. I hardly ever watch TV. And I'm not on social media a whole lot, a little bit here and there. But even just this past week, just a casual look that I've had it news, media and social media. I tell you one thing, I have not found a lot off. And that's love. Now I'm talking about God. I love this self denying love. You don't see a lot of it in the media. No, not to hurt your feelings, but some of you just nodded with Oh, yeah, man, that mainstream media. Before you go off on that rant in your mind, how about consider for a moment your mainstream media like not what you're watching but what you're producing? Consider the things that you have posted on social media this week. How much self denying love has been there. How much of a gap a love has been there. Think about the conversations you had on the phone this week or the conversations you've had by text or by email, or or maybe your social distancing conversations or maybe conversations you had when you weren't social distancing how much self denying love were in those conversations. How how much self denying a gap Love was part of those chats were quick to rail but were slow to reflect. Were quick to criticize everything that we hear from Washington or Wal Mart, but we're slow toe. Look in the mirror. We are. We're just slow would be good for us to remember this truth from the Bible. First Peter, Chapter 55 God is opposed to the proud, but he gives grace to the humble. If you could speak in the language that sounds like the angels of heaven, but you don't have love. You sound loud and arrogant and annoying, and God most likely is probably opposing you. That's not where you want to say that that's not divide you want. No, Let me stop for just a moment and be sure I make this clear. We're not talking about perfection here. We're not talking about perfect a GAAP A love. I mean, I haven't had perfect a gaap a love this week. You know I'm struggling just like most of you. I'm overwhelmed, just like most of you. I had my first couple of meltdowns this week, you know, and I don't want to have another one. You know, this week, my love looked a little more a grump A than a got a Okay, so we're not talking about perfection, that that's not the goal. None of us are perfect. But we always need to be asking the question. What's the normal pattern of life? Who are we normally inside of a pandemic or outside of a pandemic? Is there evidence of self denying love in your life? If you're a Christian, there has to be. There has to be evidence that there just has to be. And if there's not evidence than just know to the world, no matter what Christian T shirt you may have on no matter what Christian bumper sticker you may have on your car, no matter how many times you post a Bible verse on social media, if you post 25 things railing against everybody in the world. Just know your voice is a noisy gong or clanging Cymbal. And that's not good for the Kingdom of God. And you know what? It's not good for you either. So let's quit are Chuck Barris impersonations, and let's pray that God would humbles. Let's let's pray that God would help us to love Paul really wants us to get this. He really wants us to love. So he's going to move us a little deep liquid What he says, going on Verse two 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. Can you imagine having faith that move a mountain? I don't have faith toe to move that fifth doughnut away from my face back into the box. Okay, I can't even imagine moving a mountain with my face. But don't miss the punch of this if you are able by your faith. Two. In an amazing, miraculous way, move a mountain. But you don't have love. It's nothing. Someone said it would be like you might be able to move a mountain with your faith. But if you don't have love, you'd probably drop it in the middle of the road where everybody's trying to use or you might even drop it. Own people themselves. So the faith and the and the Miracle without love is of no value. It profits nothing without love speaking in supernatural spiritual language. It's nothing without love, profits. Einar are preaching or our understanding the deeper things of theology or are having faith, it seems to perform mighty miracles without love. Those things are nothing. Paul's not being confusing here, is being clear. And I hope you're hearing what's on the other side of all this. Nothing. The alternative. See, the alternative is that love is everything without love, it's nothing. But love is everything. That's that's what love is. It's it's everything but think about how that plays out in life. You know, if Aiken going the CDC website, I can pull all those numbers together and man, I can. I can filter them and call foul and point out all the errors in their statistics. But I don't have love. I got nothing. If I can take every quote from every politician in every pastor in every coach, in every school board member and every parent and every student and every person anywhere who's posted or said anything. If I could take those quotes on Boy, I can dissect him and I can deconstruct them. I concur. Show all the faults in the foolishness and what they're saying but have not love. I got nothing, Nothing. Paul is kind and gracious to be sure that we get this message and so he pushes us just a little further. But now he's going to hit where it hurts. Look at Verse three 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. So now Paul's hitting us in the debit card, all right, he's getting it, but what really hers? And this is weird. But really, this is this is a strange way to pull us deeper. I mean, think through this. It's a Ziff Paul is saying, You know what? If you were able to give enough food so that the world does not go hungry but you don't have love, you've gained nothing. If you can donate enough money to make sure that all plagues and all pandemics go away. But you don't have love. You've gained nothing. I mean, that just sounds crazy, right? But then you it kicks it up even more instead of getting on social media and ran teen that you are somehow losing your religious freedom. If instead you were burned at the stake for standing firm in your religious beliefs. But you don't have love, you've gained nothing. I mean, Paul is making sure that we're honest here. Okay, he's making sure that we get into the conversation, but truthfully, this sounds crazy. So is Paul saying Hey, don't give your money to the poor. Don't don't give your possessions to the poor. Don't don't help the poor. Don't don't try to he'll people from a plague or a pandemic. Is that what Paulson is? Paul saying? Look, don't give money to missions, Don't give money to the church. Don't give money to the poor. Don't don't help. People who are in need don't stand up for biblical trees. That that is that what he's saying? No, he's not saying that at all, really, what he's doing. He's just very uniquely expanding on the words of Jesus. This is what Jesus said Matthew. 16 Verse 26 4 What will it profit a man or woman or college student? Or a teenager or a child? Who ever What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeit Cissel? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul? The answer to those two questions is nothing. What will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits is so it won't profit him. Nothing gained nothing. What will a man give in exchange for a sold nothing. You can't give anything. So what if you were to gain clean water for the whole world? What if you were to gain induction into the honor society? What if you were to gain the winning score of the game? What if you were to gain a new smartphone or pay raise, or or better health insurance or escape from a natural disaster where escaped from automobile accident or or escape from a terrible disease? What what if you're able to gain all of those things? But things were not right between you and God, what have you gained? What? You've gained some super good things, Pretty good list of things. It is good, but you've only gained good things that you'll have until you eventually. Well, that's why we tune into the Holland Avenue stream. That preacher, he's so encouraging. Thanks for the old shot in the arm there. But truthfully, that's That's the picture that Jesus is trying to help the C. He's trying to help us have some hope today, because what Jesus is saying is that the greatest profit in this world, even if it's spirituals, supernatural language, even if its understanding the deep theological things of God, even if it is giving all your stuff away or are helping the poor even if what you're doing is even being tortured or persecuted to death for your faith. But you don't have love, you've gained nothing. He didn't just say one time. He's seen it multiple times because he wants you to know that if you have all of these things, if you profit all of these things, if your opinion is seen is right in the news media. But you don't have love. Things are not right with you. and God, Then you have nothing. You don't have the love of eternal life. Now that's kind of an important last part. There, the love of eternal life Was that me? Well, I want to repeat something that we mentioned last week. It's super important, and I really want you to engage with it. Jason Meyer said This the glory of God and the pride of man will collide at one of two crash sites. Hell or the Cross. Either we will pay for our sins in hell, Or Christ will pay for our sins, own the cross. You cannot have a GAF a love unless you collide with the cross. See, the beauty of the tragedy of the cross is that Jesus own purpose. I loved you and gave himself up for you so that you might have and enjoy and embrace the ultimate answer for everything in your life. The ultimate answer for everything in your life. What is that? Well, it breaks down like this. I am saved. I am being saved one I will gloriously and completely and ultimately be se see with salvation and Jesus, You have everything. And without it you have nothing especially true riel lasting love. But with Christ you have everything because salvation in Jesus becomes your ultimate answer to every single moment in life. Every moment when you collide with the cross you are ultimately colliding with the greatest moment of love in history, past, present or future. When you collide with the cross, you are colliding with the greatest act. The greatest expression, the greatest moment of love in history. And when you collide with love like that, it kind of does something to you. Isaac. Watch. Put it this way. Love. So amazing. So divine Demands my soul, my life, my own, all of it. So what can you do with the love of Christ Today Will Let me just say this. Don't Don't leave it on the Laugh Street. Take this challenge from Paul and do something with it today. Like today, right now. How can you take someone? Got they love towards your spouse Towards your kids, towards your parents, towards your neighbors, toward anyone else in your life, towards strangers. How can you today? What are you doing this afternoon? Let's just be real. What you doing this afternoon? Like, how can you take a got They love with you this afternoon. What can you do with this? Love is everything. It's everything. Eugene Peterson years ago developed a paraphrase of the Bible known as the message. There are times that his word choices, I think, are helpful triggers to help us take these timeless truths of the Bible and do something with them. So that wants to engage a little bit with his paraphrase of these verses. Eugene Peterson says this. If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate if I speak God's word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything playing his day and if I have faith that says to a mountain jump and it jumps. But I don't have love nothing is that word again? Nothing, he goes on. If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the state to be burned as a martyr. But I don't have love, I've gotten nowhere. So no matter what I say, what I believe in what I do, I'm bankrupt without love. Bankrupt, bankrupt, without the grace and mercy and love of Jesus but rich with grace and mercy and love of Jesus. So which are you today? Are you rich? Are you bankrupt? Are you with Christ? Or are you without Christ? Love is everything. During the 17th century, Oliver Cromwell was the Lord protector of England. He sentenced a soldier to be shot for his crimes. The execution was set to be held at the ringing of the evening curfew bill. But the Belden ring that night the man's fiancee crawled up into the Belfry. And she had climbed up on that clapper and she had wrapped her body around the clapper. And when the clapper struck at the time that it was supposed to, there was no sound because her body was buffering sound. Eventually the guards found her and brought her to Cromwell. She was weeping, She was bruised and she was bleeding. Cromwell was was moved. And this is what he said. Your lover shall live because of your sacrifice. Curfew shall not remain tonight. Look, I'm I'm not telling you. You have to go out and get bruised and start bleeding. I'm just kind of asking a simple question. How do we know what love is? How do we know? Jesus wrapped himself around the clapper of deaths Bell for you. That's how we know what love Yes. And no matter what happens in your life today, no matter what you may face this coming week if you are in Christ the curfew bell will not be ringing because love has found you. And if that love has found you, it demands your soul, your life, Euro Love is everything. Love, IHS. Everything, everything.