The Highest and Greatest Calling - Pastor Daniel Batarseh

First Corinthians, and meet me there in chapter 12. I'm sure we are all aware that it is possible for a believer to be a believer, to be saved, but to live in a manner in such a way where his focus or her focus in life is not up to the standards of how the word of God presents. And it's possible to be saved, but to suffer loss, as the Bible says, because of how we've lived our lives, though we have been sealed with the spirit, missing out on the rewards that Christ has in mind for us. And when I say that it's possible to be a believer and to not live up to the standards of the scriptures, where do our minds go? Most of us think, yeah, it's possible to be a professing Christian and to live a worldly life and not be zealous for the things of God and not be holy, and that is not a wrong connection to make, but the risk and the danger goes beyond that.

In what sense? Yes. It's possible for a professing Christian to not focus his life on the things of the spirit and the things of heaven. Absolutely. But it's possible even for a professing Christian to believe that he is actually pursuing spirituality when he has his priorities in the realm of spirituality off.

Emphasizing on the wrong things, focusing on the wrong things, spending energy and ambition towards things that the Bible calls us to focus in other areas more than we might assume. And so it's it's a danger even for people who long, and I pray that this church would be a church filled with people who long to be spiritual and not carnal. Spiritual people. But here's the thing, even in the pursuit of that, we must be aware to realize what does it really mean to be spiritual. So here's a mental test for us this morning.

When you hear, that's a man of God, so and so is a woman of God, what springs to mind? What springs to mind? What is the idea? What is the picture in our hearts, in our minds when we think man of God, woman of God? Is it a display of wealth of biblical knowledge?

Is it an understanding that so and so is a disciplined individual that prays daily and has their devotions daily? Is it is it a bold proclaimer of the gospel and biblical truth? Or is it somebody that even has a unique array of spiritual gifts that makes them seem like they are otherworldly as they as they minister to the church or minister even to the world. None of those things are not spiritual necessarily. Those are spiritual things.

But the point I wanna make this morning is that those things, and you can you can list many other things along with those things, are not the supremacy of spirituality. They are not what makes spirituality superior. There is another factor. There is something else. There's a foundational thing and the scriptures highlight what it is.

And it's so simple, but we miss it so often. And in the chapter that we're about to uncover, it is so profound that it can stand alone and preach a thousand messages. But in God's wisdom, he places it in a specific book surrounded by a specific context that makes it even more profound. In the book of first Corinthians, Paul is dealing with a church that is highly gifted, really gifted. And it is true today that there are other churches that might operate in different giftings, but this church is not operating in giftings that can be deemed as natural or can be practiced upon for improvement.

The gifts that this church is operating with are unexplainable. Supernatural, miraculous, cannot be explained other than the Spirit of God is truly among you. But despite the fact that this church is highly gifted, they are in great need of instruction. That's why Paul is writing to them. They have everything out of whack almost.

Goes to show that you can be gifted and still have things not in line with your life. And what happens with this church is that even in the realm of their gifting, Paul wants to give instruction to what? The order of those gifts, the true purpose of those gifts, and even the emphasis on these gifts. Paul wants to come in by the spirit and realign their thinking and help them prioritize what really matters when it comes to being a spiritual believer. A person who's truly holy, a person who's truly Christ like, what is it that we should be chasing?

Because this church loved the idea of being gifted, and they thought being gifted meant being spiritual. And in his snippet of teaching on the gifts of the spirit, which is not our focus today, I'm sure a lot of us got excited when we were told let's go to First Corinthians 12. We're gonna talk about the gifts maybe one day, but that's not the purpose of this morning. Join with me in verse 29 and see what Paul says. Are all apostles he's talking to the Corinthian church.

Are all prophets? Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues?

Do all interpret but earnestly desire the higher gifts? And I will show you a still more excellent way. What is Paul doing here? He is teaching the church something about the sovereignty of God and the will of the Holy Spirit behind the distribution of gifts. This whole idea of gifts is something that God ordains and he grants to his children.

He knows in his wisdom who can operate and what and who should exercise certain abilities. And so again, Paul is trying to draw them away from each other and saying, you know, God is behind all of this. No matter how effective you are, no matter how sought after you are, no matter how praised you are, in the end, apart from God, you would be nothing. And so as he's informing them, he also wants to know that although God is the one who is sovereignly decreeing how you operate in the kingdom of God with certain unique abilities, you should still desire gifts. And to say to desire them implies something.

For you to desire something should cause you to pursue it. And and Paul is saying you desire the higher gifts. Pursue the manifestations of the spirit in such a way that you would build and edify the church. If that's your motive, go for it. But trust in God's wisdom to know, yes, my son, I'll give that to you, or no, my son, you can't handle this.

I know more than you know. And so he says, yeah. I'm not downplaying ability. I'm not downplaying gifts. I'm not saying that it's inappropriate to even desire them.

But the the focus of this message and what Paul is about to say is is the last phrase of this verse. He says, and there is still yet a more excellent way. As wonderful as gifts are, as beneficial as they are, as important as they are in the body of Christ, I wanna tell you that there's something more to be desired and more to be sought after and something more to long for and to ache for. And it is something that we we we use these Christian languages when we don't realize how how heavy and weighted these things are. And he's about to explain it in the next chapter and it is what?

It's the way of love. Love. I believe the word love has become so cheap today. We we throw it around. We say it to everybody.

We say it to the the person that we were married to, and we say it to our pizza. I love pizza and I love you. It's just we throw this word love around. Love has blood in it. It's gutsy.

It's Holy Spirit inspired. It's powerful. In fact, it's the mark of the church for people to know that we are the people of God. And so Paul says, you want gifts? You wanna be spiritual?

You wanna think that you're holy? Let's talk about it. Let's talk about love and what it looks like. And what Paul needs to do, he knows this church. He knows the ones that he has led to Christ.

He used to shake them up a little bit. He used to grab them by their shoulders and says wake up and realize what I'm about to say. And I believe, likewise, for us, we need to come to a realization of how our focus I'm speaking hopefully to spiritual people to not covet the wrong things and not to to feel disqualified in our spirituality because here's the reality. He's about to speak about how the gifts of the spirit are literally futile without love. And that gives us hope.

You know why? Because when it comes to the gifts of the spirit, that is based on God's sovereign decree. You have it. You have it. You don't have it.

You don't have it. This is my wisdom. But when it comes to this, love, it's at everybody's disposal. Everyone can have access to this, to this high and great calling in the Christian faith. Nobody can ever say, well, I I can't I can't be that.

No. It's given to all. We're all at this level here of pursuing love. We can't say I'm disqualified of having that because God says no, no. So what does he do?

He wants to teach them about love and he does so in this next short chapter. And you can divide it in three sections. Between verses one and three, he talks about the superiority of love. Between verses four and eight, he speaks about the manifestations of love. And between verses eight and thirteen, he speaks about the permanence of love.

Paul wants to shake these Corinthian Christians who have put such emphasis and importance on possessing and exercising spiritual gifts without love. And he says, let me teach you something. I'm gonna leave no room for exception. I'm gonna leave no competitors to the importance of love. I'm gonna speak about every type of gift that you might desire or long for, and I'm gonna show you that if you do not have love, you're empty.

Empty in the eyes of man? Maybe not. But in God's economy, in God's economy, in God's sight, he has a different evaluation sheet about what makes a person spiritually great or mature. And let me tell you something. This might shock us.

There's nothing wrong in desiring to be spiritually great. You know, the disciples, they kept talking about who was gonna be the greatest. Like, they just that was their conversation. And Jesus over and over again had to correct him. He didn't say don't desire to be great.

He says, this is how you become great in the spiritual kingdom of God. And the greater you wanna be, the lower you're gonna go. So we all have that ambition to be great in life, and I hope it's for the kingdom of God. And if it is for the kingdom of God, then we have to understand what makes greatness achievable and what is the definition of it, and here it is. He first speaks about the gifts of speech.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. Speech. Natural speech, supernatural speech. See, the Corinthian church, they loved this idea of speaking in tongues. Now I'm not here to debate whether that is a present reality or not.

What I'm trying to say is that at this time, this was something that they boasted in so much so that in the next chapter, Paul has to bring order because tongues has overtaken the order of the service. That's all it was about. Declaring the truths of God in different languages, natural supernatural. And Paul doesn't dismiss it. He just says you put too much focus on it.

And so they were impressed. The Greeks love those who can speak and declare truths and philosophies, and that that translated in the church. It was a cultural thing, surely, but it was flesh nonetheless. And so as they were exercising in these gifts, he wants to tell them right off the bat, I wanna let you know that as much as you love this stuff and it's something to be cherished, not only is it meaningless without love, you become meaningless. He doesn't say your your speech becomes a noisy gong or a clang symbol.

You, I am. You become something that's just noise. And we know that. We know that if a person expresses conviction or can even come up and impress somebody with some amazing, sermon, whatever it may be, apart from love apart from love, it's just words. And people, even the world, can feel it.

They can know when somebody's declaring something out of love, and they know when somebody's just up there waxing eloquence. And Paul clearly says, it doesn't matter. You become noise. If you don't have this substance in your heart, if you don't have something stirring within you to say to say, you know, you are the object of my love. That's why I'm doing what I'm doing.

And we just said it earlier during the break. I can come up here. A preacher can come up and declare truth and have no hint of love towards the audience that he is preaching to. A preacher of the gospel out on the streets can do the very same. There can be alternative motives and even declaring the truths of God.

That's how corrupt we are. And so he brings clarification to something that they put so much importance into. You become nothing. Surely this startled the Corinthians. And surely it would startle anybody and christen them today because we can expand this application to those who speak, to those who sing, to those who who who do whatever it takes to declare truth.

It doesn't matter. Can you imagine years and years and years of proclaiming truth only to come to the end of it all? And god says it was nothing. It was nothing. But from there, he does not just stay with speech, he goes on into the realm of knowledge.

And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, imagine being able to have a mind where you are not challenged by any mystery nor are you limited by any question. He says all knowledge. He wants to make a point again. He wants to leave no room for exception. All knowledge.

If there's anybody like that apart from the person of Jesus Christ, it was King Solomon himself. The man had men and women traveling around the world to hear him speak. It was an experience to hear him talk, never mind possess his mind. And people would just sit there and travel. Have you ever traveled across the world to hear somebody speak?

King Solomon had it. And the temptation of the Corinthian church and the temptation of even, those throughout history who have put such a premium on the mind is the same today, it should be no surprise that we have made an idol out of the intellect. If somebody has a wealth of knowledge, if somebody is well studied, if somebody knows things about certain subjects, they are praised and sought after. Naturally because they have information, yes, but we almost have come to the point that despite their character, despite their moral standards, we will still uplift them and we will still seek after them and even bow down to their knowledge. And that has crept into the church even.

That has crept even into the the realm of Christianity where we have bowed down to intellect. And and again, we think that is spiritual. Right? How much you know. How much you know.

And we've lost sense of the power of God in love. We've lost sense of the power of the Holy Spirit through a vessel, and it's all become about just information. Give me knowledge. Give me knowledge, even biblical knowledge, without a desire to change, without a desire to be conformed to the image of Christ. People can pursue information without love.

What Paul's saying is this, listen, an excellent mind disconnected from a heart of love is meaningless. A person with rich revelation without Christ like love becomes nothing in themselves. Can you imagine all the letters and all the degrees that make somebody so famous, so known, so loved in God's economy? Nothing without love. We already feel the standard being so different, do we not?

Because we look at some we look at somebody who can display amazing skill in explaining things or even possessing knowledge and we go, yes, in the realm of Christianity, surely that person is spiritual. Not so. Some of the most unspiritual people I know have the most knowledge about the Bible. Fathom that for a moment. And some of us in here can testify of experiencing the ministry of a well studied vessel without love.

I can tell you this, a person who has even cover to cover memorization of the scriptures and every theological concept apart from love will have no longevity in their ministry. They might have a remnant of you that just want knowledge, but listen, knowledge without love doesn't go far, but knowledge with love, wow. That's profound. Paul's not dismissing these things. He just wants to get the priorities straight.

He doesn't stop at mouth, he doesn't stop at speech, he doesn't stop in the realm of the knowledge. He goes on now even to radical acts of service and sacrifice. He talks about faith. He says even if you have faith that can move mountains, which which is an amazing thing because to have faith that can move mountains implies that you have so much trust in God to pray and believe for things to happen in the miraculous. You can even do that without love.

I'm telling you, I was reading this last night, and I was getting scared. How can you pray and believe God for the miraculous and not have love? It gets even scarier because he goes on to say in verse three, if I give away all I have give away all you have. All, not some things. Again, all.

But don't have love. It's nothing, and you're nothing. Here's my understanding. How do you give all you have without love? Like what other thing what other motive would possess your heart to say, here's everything I have.

And then in that heart that gives, there's actually no ambition to love. Welcome to the corruption of man's heart. And the bible leaves us without example. No. We have example.

Think of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts chapter five. A couple that gave, and in their giving were struck dead by God. Imagine that. And we think why? What happened?

Well, they didn't just give. They pretended to to they sold all, but they pretended to give all. In reality, they kept some. But why would they even come to that point? Read Acts five one.

You'll see that the first word there is but, implying that there's a connection with the previous section that is worthy of our consideration. Before Ananias and Sapphira gave to the church, a man by the name of Barnabas gave to the church. And when he gave to the church, he really wanted to give to the church, and he did. He sold his property and he donated at the feet of the apostles. And Barnabas was so well respected by the church.

He was even deemed son of encouragement. And I believe the connection there is that as Ananias and Sapphira saw how the church praised Barnabas and the respect that he received, they looked at each other and says, we want that. We want that recognition. So, honey, this is what we're gonna do. We're gonna sell, but we're gonna keep some to ourselves and we're gonna we're gonna do what Barnabas did.

We're gonna just declare that we gave everything for the sake of the gospel. So what was their motivation in giving? So that in return they would receive respect, praise, and recognition from others. Oh, it's possible to give without love. And if there is any hint of love in Ananias and Sapphira's giving, it was a love for self.

It was a love for self. I can tell you some scary stories right now about people who have given such a way that there was, you don't need to be a prophet to figure out that it was done without love. It's possible. Scary. Right?

Do you feel it? Do you sense it? How how ambition apart from love can so creep in even apparent acts of love? Well, it doesn't stop there because cause Paul now goes on to something even more radical, not giving of material, giving of self. If I give up my body to be burned and do not love, The highest act of love, self sacrifice, laying down your life.

And Paul says, you know you can do that without love. You know it's possible that our sin nature can so pollute our motives that you can become a martyr and it counts for nothing. Think about that. How? How can somebody give up self without love?

Well, giving of self is just the highest way of giving. Whether you give materially or you give up physically, the corrupt ambition can still remain the same. So the ambition of Ananias and Sapphira in wanting recognition and praise and respect can even come to the point of giving of self even if you don't live to hear about it. This is profound. And you can almost imagine that as the Corinthians are hearing this, it leaves no room to say, well, what about this?

He has covered all ground. And what what he's trying to do is cause the heart to stir. This is what the spirit of God is trying to do. So that in hearing this, if you are a person that truly wants to know what it means to be spiritual, spiritually greater, spiritually mature, you would hear what was just said and say, well, if those things don't mean anything, then tell me what love is. Tell me what love is.

And that's what he does in the next section. But instead of defining love, he wants to show what it looks like, leaving no temptation for personal interpretation of what love is or what love looks like. John does the same thing. He says, If you love God but hate your brother, John, the apostle of love, if you love God but hate your brother, he's like, you're a liar. You're a liar.

How can you love someone that you don't see but hate somebody that you do see? And so Paul is doing the same thing here. Let's just, let's just skip over this idea of defining love because we can define it. But let's just show what it looks like so that when you look at these different manifestations of love, you would be caused to say, is this true in my life? I'm not gonna say, well, yeah, I love because of this.

The Bible says, if you love, this is what it's gonna look like. This is what it's gonna look like. And what's what's so fascinating is that you have 15 qualities of love here. 15 qualities of love. Not limited to this, but surely he's covering most of it.

And what I want to do this is a very simple message this morning, but sometimes we need to be simple so that we can get to what's truly spiritual. What we wanna do is just look at these things and hear what love actually manifests itself like. He says love is patient. Love is patient. It gives us the necessary motivation to remain committed to others despite their mistreatment of us.

It's a sacrificial service that remains. It is not shaken. Even if there is a failure on somebody else's part of doing the same to you, love is so patient. It's patient with others. Did not Christ demonstrate this with his disciples?

I mean, leaders can feel frustrated from preaching a message on a certain topic for so long and people still not getting it. Jesus went beyond that. He did miracles, and his disciples still didn't get it. Jesus oftentimes in love says, now what is how much more is it gonna take? Where's your faith?

But he loved them until the end, John 13. And not just because of their misunderstanding did he say, no, even in their betrayal, even in them abandoning him, he did not abandon them. Love is so binding. It's so committed. It's not easily shaken off.

It has a grip to it that grips you to other people even if they're not committed to you as you would like. Not only is it patient, love is so kind. It causes a person to be tender, to be soft and compassionate. There is a there is a a fragrance of a person who has love that causes anybody around them to know that if I approach this person, I know that they're gonna be kind, friendly, warm, helpful. Love is so strong and powerful that it overwhelms whatever your personality is, because I've heard it before and there's no excuse in this text.

Rude is not a personality type. It swallows that. If not, then this love is not supernatural, but it is. And it affects every manner of how we can communicate to one another, from speech to reactions to body language. There is something of a clothing of kindness that comes upon the one who is possessed by love.

There's no mixed signal with this kind of a person. You know that person is compassionate and soft, and they're dealing with others. But love is not just shown in what we do. We know that love is actually proven in what we choose not to do, don't we not? So he says, love is not just patient and kind, it does not.

Here's a negative, it does not envy. You can't have love and envy at the same time. And envy is is a desire to have what another possesses to the point of resentment, to the point of discontentment internally. But see, when a person loves, it causes a person to look at others' achievements, their positions, their possessions, and for you to actually celebrate them and honor them. It causes you to look at them and actually be joyful for them even though what they have you do not have.

There is a murdering of covetousness with love. There is a severing. This person with love is consumed with with others above themselves, so when they see others succeed, their joy increases. But a person who doesn't have it has all kinds of nasty, evil, wicked things corrupting their hearts towards others. It does not envy nor does it boast.

Love can't cause a person to boast, and a person who has love in the presence of others knows how to wisely be careful not to exaggerate or to elevate themselves before others. Even in their own achievements or ambitions, even in their great accomplishments, love knows how to be sensitive to others by not trying to place self as more important than the fellow man. And so a person who loves is a person who knows how to, no matter how important others may claim that they are, they always see others as more important and significant as themselves. And when you're in the presence of somebody who truly has this love, I can guarantee something, you will feel that way. You will feel that you are more important.

You will feel that you are more cherished and valued as you get to know them more and more. Love does not boast. It's even more specific. Love does not boast in its very acts of love. So a person who loves doesn't love for the sake of receiving praise for their love.

Does that make sense? Because I can even, again as we heard, I can attempt to do great acts of love for the sake of boasting that I love. Can you imagine? But love doesn't boast, even in acts of love. Love does not mind being in secret in their acts of kindness.

It doesn't boast. Not only that, it is not arrogant. There's a humility about a person who loves. Their focus is on you. No matter, again, what they've done, who they are, where they come from, what they've achieved, no matter their status in society, no matter their endeavors in life, when you're in their presence, you feel loved.

And that tells me something wonderful about the person of Jesus Christ. If there was any man on earth who was worthy of praise and worship and adoration, surely it was the God man Jesus Christ. But this tells me something because if God is love and Jesus is God, when Jesus was on this earth and he was in a room, no matter who he was, and he is God, no matter how much of a sinner you were, oh, you felt loved. You felt loved in the presence of the king of kings and the lord of lords. You felt valued, and that's what made sinners melt into tears at his feet.

It wasn't just his holiness, though he is holy. It was the mingling of the holiness and love of God that shattered cold hearts. See, the Pharisees didn't possess love. So when the Pharisees were in the presence of sinners, they were repelled and disgusted, and they wanted nothing to do with this religion because of them. But when Christ stepped on the scene, holier than all the Pharisees put together, the one who did miracles, the one who deserved to come in on a throne, When you were there, you just wanted to be drawn to him.

You wanted to be magnetized. You wanted to be around him because you knew love. It is not arrogant nor is it rude. I've said it before, but maybe we need to compact it in our hearts. Ill mannered or being impolite is not becoming of a Christian.

That will be proven more than any time when you're conversing with others that have different opinions with you. There's a way of communicating even convictions like Daniel in Daniel chapter one with kindness and love, though with firmness in such a way that, like second Timothy says, that you can so oppose those who have different views and and gentleness that it can cause God to grant them repentance and receive that repentance. It's not rude. And I believe that, unfortunately, many tongues in the church need to be baptized in love, Need to be softened by love. Because our sharpness can even come in the name of jokes when it does more harm than good.

Love does not insist on its own way. You know, as I read these and as I look at what these really mean, I just feel the weight of it more and more. Like, you add do you feel that? It's like, this is what love is, this is what love is, is this really what love is? It becomes more and more challenging, and there's a reason for that.

Love does not insist on its own way. When you receive Christ as your savior, you're also connected to his body, the church. You did not just inherit salvation, you inherited a global family. It is inescapable. Christian community cannot be rejected if you're truly a Christian.

You have to be plugged into a body. And the gifts, as we talked about, the fact that they're distributed to different people in God's wisdom is is caused so that we would learn how to be dependent upon one another so that even I myself cannot say I have everything that I need. No. You need your brother and sister. And the gifts are part of the reason for us in understanding that.

So what happens? You're part of a community. I'm part of a community. But we are people with different backgrounds, different past, and different personalities. And when you grab a people like this with different cultures and different backgrounds, different age groups and experiences, if love is not raiding in our hearts, any community will crash.

Because when you don't have love, you open the door for selfishness and that opens another door, doesn't it? Stay in selfishness long enough in any category of relationship, and you're gonna open another door. And the other door is what? Chaos. Chaos.

And what happens after that? Whether a church or a relationship, that relationship will crash. What shuts the doors to all those dangers is one thing, the binding work of love. And what love does is this, it so rewires your thinking that when you're in the presence of believers and you do life with them, whenever it comes to so we wanna know what does it feel like to have this love? Well, here's what it looks like.

That when you make decisions on any level, in the equation of your decisions on any level, you're always thinking about others. You're always considering others. See, a person who is not mature in love, in their thinking, in their decision making, they're so focused on self, they don't even consider others. That is a person that is lacking maturity and love. But the wider the walls, the wider the walls is the proof that you have a love in your heart.

You think about others. It's there. It's not about what I feel, how I'm gonna be satisfied. No. No.

No. It goes beyond that. What will this do to so and so and so and so? If I if I leave out so and so, what will that do to them? This is very elementary, but it is the highest calling of a Christian.

It does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable. It is not irritable. That doesn't that means more than being annoyed. I'm sure all of us can be annoyed very easily.

It's deeper than that. It's talking about something of endurance concerning insults and mistreatment from others. And here's the thing, when a person who has love is met with those things, they're the friction of that is not causing irritation, it's actually causing something else. Listen to how powerful this love is. That when a person with love is met with those things, insults and persecution and hatred and gossip and slander, what happens?

The friction actually causes them to do something else, pray and bless them. Do you realize how supernatural that is? That friction usually does what? It irritates us. How can they?

Who do they think they are? Do they know who I am? No. No. No.

Such thoughts are not possible in the heart of love. In fact, the opposite happens. You begin to think, I gotta pray for so and so. I will not stop blessing them. You feel the way.

Right? I hope. If anybody's sitting here saying, nothing. Easy peasy. I'm doing a bad job preaching this morning.

It is not irritable nor is it resentful. And some translation says, love holds no record of wrong. Think about that. Love holds no record of wrong. It doesn't mean that you forget about the offense.

What it does mean is that you will not hold the offense against them in the way that you treat them. See, what happens with a person with love, even if they've been the victim of something atrocious and ugly and vicious, he does not allow the pain to create a bitterness or to determine how I will treat you from this moment on. See, a person who has love does not take a past offense and wave it in the the face of the offender in order to have some leverage for a present benefit. You did this, now this is what you need to do because of what you did. That person does not have love in their hearts.

There's no plan for revenge. There's no hatred harbored. They can. There's something in there that's causing them to say, as much as it was painful and as much as I I I do have a trust issue, which is okay, I'm still gonna love you. Now up to this point, all of us can say, yeah, that that's my understanding of love.

It's hard to swallow, but it's true. But what I'm about to say next and what Paul's about to say next is where many Christians have drawn their line in their definition of love. And this is where I believe that the enemy has caused many professing Christians to be deceived in their understanding of love. Verse six, it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth. See, for so long, the modern church has been attempting to try to dissect and separate attributes of God when in fact they are more intricately woven than we think.

So God is holy, yes, but God is love. Who says that you separate those things? Who gives you and I the right to separate those things when they are like full rings that are attached to one another and they overlap. You cannot separate God's love from his standard of righteousness. You can't.

Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing. What is happening today is that there is a campaign in the name of Christ's love to tolerate sin, when according to Paul and more importantly the Holy Spirit, that is an unloving thing to do, no matter how much you've convinced yourself otherwise. See, what love will do in a person's heart is call people to repentance. And what love will do is it will call people to rebuke. It will call people to correction with love, in a spirit of love.

Yes. But not changing that standard of righteousness in the name of love. See, the Holy Spirit knew that in the day to come there would be a people who would try to take God's love as a license to accept and call people to remain as they are when God loves them too much to keep them as they are. See, the most unloving thing that a preacher can do, or any Christian for that matter, is be able to see somebody in their sin and and being afraid to hurt them, keep them damned. A person who is possessed by love sees past the immediate feelings or even the relationship that might be fractured in that transaction of truth, they will see the value of the human soul, and they will do whatever it takes in great wisdom and leading of the spirit to make sure that that truth is delivered into the heart of that sinner or that brother or sister in sin.

What we see today in modern Christianity, especially amongst modern preachers, I will say it in love, is not love. It's a demonic understanding of love. It's hatred. It's hatred. They don't love people.

They love their reputation. That's what they love. They love the money in the bucket every week. That's what they love. They love their name more than their souls.

Because love does not rejoice at wrong. It celebrates truth. And we are told in verse seven in bullet points for other things, love bears all things. It's an attitude that desires to cover sin and to lift up the one who has been found in sin. Love has no desire to discover sin in a brother or a sister and to trumpet that sin to others.

Spurgeon said that he has found so many professing Christians that are more excited in spreading slander than in spreading the gospel. It cannot be found in a Christian to discover something of a fallen state of a brother or sister and get more excited to share that with another brother and sister than to say, I gotta do something to restore them. Galatians six tells us very clear that he who is spiritual should restore the one who has fallen. Love looks at a broken person and says, I'm gonna do what it takes to bear you up and bear your burdens, even now as you were being crushed by your own sin. It doesn't just bear all things, it believes all things.

Now I want you to think about this. Love is not gullible. Love doesn't say, I believe everything that's brought before me. No. Love and believing all things simply means that when you look at a person, you believe the best about them.

That when you look at an individual, even in their state of inconsistency or even in their unrepentant state as a non believer, what you have is a filter over your eyes and you say you are not beyond hope. You are savable. You are sanctifiable. That's a word. You are clay that God can mold into his image still.

That's important as you walk through this journey with, especially brothers and sisters, cause you're gonna see people with different spiritual strengths. And what you'll find oftentimes is some people are more inconsistent than others and what it can cause you to feel towards them is forget about it. They're just gonna stay this way. They're just never gonna learn. Love doesn't think that way.

Love looks and says, I know it's hard and I know it's been years even, but I believe that God can still change you. And I will live my life with you in such a way that I will help you change by God's grace. Love. It believes all things. That is not a call to be undiscerning.

It's not a call to be unwise, to just say whoever you are, whatever you say, I'm gonna take it in. No. It believes the best in somebody's heart. Hopes all things. It doesn't look at immediate failure.

It doesn't look at circumstances right now. It believes that God, in the end, has the best in mind and all things will lead to the end, especially in the realm of relationships. It hopes all things. So many relationships need hope, and that love will generate hope. It doesn't give up on people so easily.

And finally, the exclamation mark of Paul's defining of the qualities of love comes to love endures all things. It endures all things. In what sense? Love is not a flash of emotion. Love is not a honeymoon phase.

Love is not something that's there one weekend but it's not there the next weekend. Love is something that can weather storms. Love is something that you have to take a crowbar and and just yank out of somebody's heart because it is so ingrained and embedded in somebody's soul. Love endures. It's able to last for a lifetime, and it's not determined based on the lovelessness of other people.

You are possessed by a different spirit. Now, I have two remarks to make at this point in terms of Paul's understanding in the Holy Spirit's definition of love. We just skim the surface to get a taste of what it's like. But here's what I want to present to you today. Study the gifts of the spirit.

Go to chapter 12, go to chapter 14, hear testimonies from people God has used in miraculous ways, and ask yourself honestly, put those things on one side of the scale and put love on the other. What one is weightier? Which one is more dazzling and attractive? Have our eyes somewhat now have been sanctified to see as God sees concerning the value and the supremacy of love? That it dominates all other things?

It's not that these things are important, it's not that you have to divorce them, it's that when you have this, it will affect and give a fragrance to everything else, including gifts. Is there any shift in the heart this morning that says, you know, maybe I've coveted this and this and that, thinking that this is what makes me holy and spiritual? When all along there's something called love. You know why people are attracted to these other things including gifts and other manifestations of being holy? Because that's easier than love.

It's easier. It's not hard to preach a message. It's not difficult to collect some thoughts and come up here, get some good stories and and stir your emotions. What's harder? That from Monday to Friday, how I treat my family, how I treat my friends, how I treat the stranger when I'm not getting good service at a restaurant, when I'm not being treated the way I think I should be treated, that's where blood is required.

That's where sweat really comes in. Love. No wonder. No wonder God says, this is the more excellent way. Surely it is, which comes to the next point.

Are you convinced not only that it is more to be sought after, but are you convinced that it is just as supernatural as the gifts are? We should be. Reading it personally, thinking to myself, it bears all things and hopes all things and believes all things. All these excuses are shooting in my mind. Doesn't insist on his own way.

Lord, sometimes can I insist on my own way? It endures. Was there sometimes I can let go because I'm being pummeled by the selfishness of others? No. In all things, in all things, in all seasons, at all times, in all circumstances, love will be present.

And here's the reaction that can, unfortunately, erupt in the hearts of people, not just in light of this text, but in any command of the Bible. There are mainly two reactions that the reader will have. One, are you kidding me? I've given up in just reading it, never mind trying to do it. Lord, are you actually calling me to such a standard of life?

Do you realize who I live with? Do you realize who I do church with? Do you realize my kids? Do you know my husband? Do you know my coworkers?

Are you seeing how wicked this world is, Lord? This was this was written a long time ago, Lord. Are you sure you're not gonna change your mind? Can you let up a little bit on this standard of love? You can look at it that way.

Or in light of the whole Bible, you can take another pair of lenses and see something just like this, a standard of love, and say, do I get to live like that? This is possible for me? I can actually walk in this kind of love? Lord, are you because there is never a command in the Bible that behind the command is no promise to empower you for obedience. If you're convinced that this is a supernatural way of life, then you have interpreted the text correctly Because it leads us to an application that will not find your name on it.

Go to second Thessalonians with me. Excuse me. First Thessalonians chapter three as as we close in a moment. Look what Paul says in first Thessalonians three verse 12. And may the Lord, may the Lord make you increase and abound in love.

Who's doing the increasing and the abounding? Not you. Not me. That's for sure. The Lord.

His prayer is that you would be stretched. Your your heart would be stretched, and your heart would be filled with a greater love for one another and for all. See, it's easy to love Christians. Not just love for one another, but love for all people. See, first Corinthians 13 is not limited to church folk.

It bleeds into the world, and God does that. Why? As we do for you. Isn't that wonderful that they have this love and they say it's possible? What a wonderful hope.

We heard that that Friday, that if any spiritual leader is gonna preach anything, he better pursue and have a measure of possession of the thing that he is speaking of. I'm praying that you would increase and abound in love as we do for you. You felt it first before you've heard it from our lips or read it from our writing. And then he goes on to say this, so that the consequence, he may establish your heart's blameless and holiness. You wanna be holy, you wanna be spiritual, you wanna be Christ like, you wanna be well rounded in your spirituality, you can't separate love from the equation.

In fact, love makes you blameless. See, many people have an interpretation of holiness and they have everything except love. Self righteousness, a pharisaical spirit. There there's no spirit of inclusion. It's rejection.

Here's our holy club. And Paul says, listen. If you love, you're truly holy. And the more you grow in love, the more you will increase in holiness. But here's the main point.

It's God that does it. So what does that do? It draws you. As the gifts of the spirit, the desire would cause you to go to the one who dispenses the gifts, how much more the one who is loved to give love to us? So I have every right to come before God who is love to say, Lord, if you are love and you live in me, then take off the cap and take over.

And I want to be loving. I wanna be loving. Very simple message, is it not? But very precious and profound to God. You know, you can get so mixed up in your pursuit and your ambition to be a holy man of God or a holy woman of God, and you can be focused on everything else except the simplicity of love.

I wanna leave us with one challenge. Let's go back to first Corinthians four 13. We didn't talk about the permanence of love from verses eight down. But if there's any note to make on it, it is this, that if you're gonna pursue anything, you're gonna pursue something that is permanent, not right? Whenever you buy a product, you're looking for something that's gonna last the longest.

Right? That's at least one of the, that's one of the reasons why you're gonna purchase something over the other. And he goes, love never ends. These gifts, they're gonna stop, but love is gonna continue into eternity. Love is the one substance that's gonna remain.

Hope and faith, that stuff is gonna come to an end. What are we having faith in? What are we hoping for when we step into glory? But one thing that will be continually experienced and even heightened and magnified in glory is love. Invest in it now.

But I want you to do this, look at verses four down to verse eight. If you have any doubt in your heart, or maybe you think that this isn't applied to you, I want you now, and I'm gonna do it for the sake of illustration, but I want you in your own mind to do this. I want you to replace the word love with your name. And I want you to ask the Lord this morning if this is something real in your life. And if you feel convicted or condemned at not, you go back to First Thessalonians and say, may the Lord increase and abound my heart in love.

Can I tell you one thing before I do this? I've learned over the years, especially when you first get saved, there's something about the supernatural. There's something about reading books and testimonies of what God has done in different parts of the world that you you almost make your prayers so focused on those things alone. And I've learned over the years as you read through the Bible that God has a different standard. God has a different ambition for us.

Not that these things, again, should not be sought after, but in terms of priority. And I think to myself, God, you elevate servanthood and you elevate sacrifice and you elevate love, allow God to morph your prayers. Let's read this. I'm gonna use my name, but you think of your name and ask yourself, Lord, is this true in my heart? Not just in some days, but daily, is this true in my heart?

Daniel is patient and kind. Daniel does not envy or boast. Daniel is not arrogant or rude. Daniel does not insist on his his own way. Daniel is not irritable or resentful.

Daniel does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but Daniel rejoices with the truth. Daniel bears all things. Daniel believes all things. Daniel hopes all things. Daniel endures all things.

Can I be honest? I can look at some of these things and say, check, check, check, check, check, check, check, yeah, I don't know about that. But here's the reality of love. Unlike the gifts, you don't have some and not the other. When you have love, you have all of these things.

See, we think of it in the same way, the fruit of the spirit. We think it's the fruits of the spirit. It's not. Single word fruit, and then he describes the nine things. If you have the fruit of the Spirit, you're gonna possess all those things.

If you have love, you're gonna have all these qualities. And so I look at this and I say, Lord, I'm not gonna be satisfied with having eight out of the 15. Lord, I'm gonna look at this and say, may you increase and abound my heart in love. Lord, at the end of my life, I'm sure I can be remembered for some things, but if there's one thing I wanna be remembered for is that I've left a trail of charity. And whoever I've come into contact with see, you might feel discouraged in your pursuit of spiritual greatness because you don't have certain gifts.

Well, that's lifted off now. Because God looks at you and he's looking for one main thing that trumps all things, and that's love. And it's accessible to each of us. I read this text and I found myself praying, Lord, forgive me if I've thought that spirituality was something more complex than this. Forgive me.

I thought it was the way I dress or the way I carry myself. Certain degree, again, spirituality touches every aspect of life, but love. Just raw love, relational, touching people in their lives with your acts of love. This is what God is after with his church. This is what God is after.

This is what we have access to. I know this is simple. I know this is foundational. But, oh god, if I have learned anything, it is that he desires for us to just take him at his word and to adopt the elementary, the weightier, and the lighter. All of it.

Drink it all in. This morning, let's ask God to help us abound and increase in that love. Lord, we come before you because we are excited in light of a message like this, that we are invited to a standard of life that can be energized and animated by the person of the Holy Spirit. And we say, Lord, if this is what's available, then I dive into it. Lord, we thank you for the wonderful truth that it is a supernatural thing for this love to be real consistently.

And so, Lord, we come to you, the God who is love, to impart this love into our hearts. Lord, we do our part by eliminating all the excuses and all the reasons why we can't love this way. And we say, Lord, if this is what you call us, that this if this is the more excellent way, then let me walk in it. And, Lord, may it be something that we can actually sense, may not just be in our minds, or we wanna see it in life. We wanna see it in our relationships.

We wanna see it in our reactions. So Lord, possess your people with this love and help us know that the world may not celebrate such equality, but Lord, you value this. And the reason why you value it is because when you look at a person with love, you see the reflection of your own face. And so, Lord, we know that this is for your name's sake. Thank you, Lord, that as much as this is a heavy standard, it is a light thing because we can all be spiritually mature.

We all have the ability to walk in this. And so fill your people with this supernatural, Christ ordained, Holy Spirit inspired, God reflecting love. And we know, Lord, that we can replace those words of love with your name, and it would fit so well. But, Lord, help us be able to put our name and confidently say, not in self righteousness, but in the knowledge of the grace of God, that we can love because love lives in us. We pray these things in Jesus' name.

Amen.