“The Distinguishing Mark”

A big thanks to everyone who provided music for us to aid us in worship and lead us in worship.

I want you to take your Bibles please, as we look to God's Word this morning and find 1 Corinthians 13.  If you would like to use a  Pew Bible, the blue book in front of you, you can find that on Page 959.  In a moment I'm going to read the chapter.  It is only 13 verses because it will speak much to us on it's own, and then over 2 or 3 Sundays we will look at it in three ways:  The Foundation of Love, the Function of Love and the Duration of Love. Today is going to introduce it and show us the foundation of love. 

Before I get to that, however, I want to ask you a question and I want you to just answer inside.  I want you to answer truthfully inside.  The choir sang a song about God singing over us with loud singing, rejoicing over his children.  Now, don't give me any indications; I'll read your poker face and tell if you are really answering it or not.  That's a great analogy isn't it for the church? [Laughter] 

Do you feel like God is singing and rejoicing over you? I'm asking that for two reasons:

I know for experience and fact, being a pastor now for years, that many of God's people do not see their Father in Heaven rejoicing over them.  They are still wondering if he is mad at them.  However there is a complete quantum  leap and flip side to that when you hear a wonderful song such as that.  Songs can always be taken out of context because they can only sing one thing.  That song sang about the measure of God's love for his children and it only told the second half of the gospel, and if you just heard that and you are given great self esteem and you have a sanguine personality, you say, "Hey God, he really likes me…give me 5, God."

In that very same book of Zephaniah, before he gets to the singing over his people, God says, "I'm going to wipe out mankind." Wow!  That's not very nice of God, is it?

Warren said "Jesus wasn't in the Old Testament."  He was a mystery in the Old Testament and that's why God could say, "I'm going to have a judgment and then I'm going to sing over my children." 

Why does God sing over you?  That's a fact, he does.  In fact, most of you and I need to learn to believe, but why does he?  It isn't because you have performed well.  It is not because you were born white, middle-class in the United States of America.  It is not because you are a good little boy or girl.  It is because you are in Christ, and then you are something worth singing over.  Because God has come to you and given you light and life, because you have asked Christ into your heart.  Get this picture; you are placed into Christ and when God sings and exults over you, He does not see your past or even present sin, though he knows it.  He sees Christ's perfect obedience, perfect lover of God, perfection without a spot and in him you are justified, made right before God and nothing can touch you there, so he does rejoice over us, to hear his voice, let us hide in Christ; else, the singing bring pride.  If the singing of God over us brings pride, we are hearing the wrong voice.  If the singing of God over us bring exultation in him, brings joy in him, brings solidity to our lives, we are hearing the voice of God because he is pleased with us in His Son.

I don't know about you, but since my conversion there have been many, many times I have wondered deeply if God is pleased with me.  And then God's Spirit, or his Word or a friend brings me back to the cross and points me to the cross and says, "Quit looking at yourself and look at your saviour, yes, God is pleased with you."

1 Corinthians 13 brings us to a place.  I don't really know that I even have the words to approach this, so I'm going to try to use some words that will grab our attention.  It brings us to a severe place, 1 Corinthians 13 does.  It is one of the most mistreated passages of scripture in the Bible.  It is one of the most practical passages; easily understood passages for application there is in the Bible.  We read it; its words capture us, we see some bit of its literary beauty, its real life beauty and we walk off from it and it hasn’t impacted us.  We somehow are kept closed to its meaning, or we close our eyes to its meaning.  This passage of scripture is a wrestling match.  It is a difficult place because it calls us to do something we cannot do, and it alerts us, as few passages can, to the reality of our faith, to the necessity of the genuine Christian faith. It's like an electric shock  to our culture when God rivets us to the facts, the established truth of a certain and a real Christian faith, not a make believe one.

Now I'm going to read the text, overall and lay the foundation and understand why.   We will see this morning why love is the distinguishing mark of the Christian.  You can think of all the marks that you want to think.  You can think of all the things that display that you are a Christian, but the Bible will teach us love is the distinguishing mark of a Christian.

1 Cor. 13:1-13

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not charity, I am a noisy gong and a clanging cymbal. [2] And If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. [3] If I give away all I have and if I deliver up my body to be burned, and have not love, I gain nothing. [4] Love is patient and kind;  love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude.  [5]It does not insist on its own way.  It is not irritable  or resentful. [6] It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth; [7] Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. [8] Love never ends: As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for  knowledge, it will pass away. [9] For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. [10] But when the perfect comes, the partial shall pass away. [11] When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child: but when I became a man, I gave up childish ways. [12] For now we see in a mirror dimly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know fully even as I have been fully known. [13] So now faith, hope and love abide; these three; but the greatest of these is love.

I have often wondered why young couples choose to have this passage of scripture read in their wedding ceremony since neither one of them will keep it even through their honeymoon.  May I remind you of love's function?  Love is patient and kind, love does not envy or boast, it is not arrogant or rude, it does not insist on it's own way, so why incur  greater judgment on your honeymoon by having that read at your wedding?  Or, if you make it through the honeymoon with that kind of love, how long does it last?  It's that kind of thing that reminds me that I don't know that we have grasped the seriousness of love.  So, we're going to look at three simple things this morning and the first of that is the issue of love's superiority. Why is love superior?

Look at Paul's statement.  Paul just flat out states that it is superior.  He ends Chapter 12 writing about all the spiritual gifts with these words.  He says, "But earnestly desire the higher gifts and I will show you  a still more excellent way."  The word excellent is the word we get our word hyperbole from.  It means to throw beyond.  So Paul is saying here, "I want to show you something that is beyond all the spiritual gifts.  It is superior to them.  He says the very same thing again at the end of this chapter in verse 13.  Look at what he says:

"So now faith, hope and love abide, these three, but the greatest of these is love."

Why is love superior?  It was the great Jonathan Edwards who said that love is superior to the greatest privileges in life that God gives and the greatest practices in life that we do even for or before God.  Look back at Verses 1-3 please, because the group of men that I pray with on Sunday morning as we were discussing this, this morning and you ask "What is love?" and the first thing that always comes out in mature thinkers is, Well love is action, you can feel love all you want.  You can say you love somebody all you want but until you do it, they don't know you love them and that is very true.  But, according to Paul, that's an insufficient definition.  Love is more than actions and love is more than feeling. Look at what he said.  The first part is easy to get. 

"If I speak with the tongues of men an angels and have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal."

[You've heard someone who is very elegant, but you knew there was no love in their heart and they were just like that to your ears, a big irritant.]

"If I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and have all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but have not love, I am nothing."  That one is astounding.  But it's the next one that really gets us.

"If I give away all I have and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing."

It does not matter  what you do in performance towards God or towards man, if it is not motivated by love it is worth zero.  Why is that?  In the Bible there are extraordinary workings of the Spirit of God and ordinary workings of the Spirit of God.  Ordinary workings are those things He does in all of his children.  Things that are permanent, things that are always true of every child of his.  Then there are extraordinary things he does in some of his children, but they are no proof that they are his child. 

A simple illustration would be this.  Let's suppose that we have someone in who is a great preacher, I mean as a lecturer, as a preacher they are electrifying.  They keep you on the edge of your seat.  They have the gift of preaching and teaching.  You left here saying, "Man, that was great, wasn't it?"  All I'm saying is that gift is on proof of the genuine nature of that person's faith.  That's what Paul is telling us, but look at how the Saviour illustrates that.  You've got to do a little work with me this morning.  Take your Bible please and go to the first book in the New Testament, Matthew 7, where we hear some startling words from the Lord.  Matthew 7:  this is all linear , you are going to have to follow along to the end for this to come together.  We are thinking about the superiority of love.  Paul made some plain statements that love is greater than gifts, love is greater performances, or if you will, greater than privileges God gives us to speak in tongues, to have faith, to have knowledge, to perform miracles or works of wonders, and it is greater than practices of giving our lives to be burned in sacrifice for someone else, or giving away all our possessions for someone else.  What does he mean by that?  The Saviour teaches us something in Matthew 7, and then we'll look at Luke 10.

Matthew 7:21:" Jesus said, Not everyone who says to me 'Lord, Lord,' will enter the kingdom of heaven." 

Now I thought the Bible said that whoever calls on the Name of the Lord will be saved, that no one could say "Jesus is Lord" except by the Spirit of God.  Jesus says, "Not everyone who says to me, "Lord, Lord" will enter the kingdom of heaven.  Why?  But the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 

You have the ascent of the mind of who Jesus is and what he's done and then you have the ascent of the heart.  There we begin to catch on to what love is and what faith is.  We are going to explain their connection in a minute, but look at this:  Verse 22:

"On that day many will say to me, 'Lord, Lord did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name, and then will I declare to them I never knew you.  Depart from me you workers of lawlessness."

So, you see privileges, powers, supernatural ones are no comparison to love because they are temporary and they are no indication of the genuine faith that is prompted by love.  Look at what Jesus said in Luke Chapter 10.  Let's just affirm what we are talking about, Luke 10:17:

Jesus has sent out his disciples, 72 of them.  He gave them powers before they went out and in Luke 10:17 we read these words:

"The seventy-two returned with joy saying, 'Lord, even the demons are subject to us in your name.  And he said to them, I saw Satan fall like lightening from heaven.  Behold, I have given you authority to tread on serpents and scorpions and on all the power of the enemy and nothing shall hurt you.  Nevertheless, do not rejoice in this that the spirits are subject to you, but rejoice that your names are written in heaven."

The Lord is saying, "Don't look for temporary things.  Look for that which lasts.  And the Bible tells us that love endures forever.  It is greater than faith and hope.  So we want to see the superiority of love, I want you to look at one more place, look at Ephesians 4.  In Ephesians 4 we some of the gifts of the gifted individuals that have been given to the church, in Ephesians 4:11.  We are building an argument so that we can understand the foundation of love, not understanding this does not allow us to see the drastic nature of this passage.  In Ephesians 4:11, Paul is explaining the working of the church and the working of God to build up the church. 

And he gave the apostles, the prophets, and the evangelists [now here he is referencing people, but these are gifted people with these gifts], the pastors and teachers to equip the saints for the work of ministry.  The purpose of the gifts in the church is to equip the church and to edify, or build up, the church for building up the Body of Christ.  But, what's the end goal here?  The end result?

Verse 15: "Rather speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head into Christ from whom [that is from Christ] the whole body joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped [that's every member in the church] when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in gifts…love.  Gifts are secondary because they are a means to get somewhere.  Love is the end of the means and the end is always superior to the means.  If a spiritual gift in the church is not used to build up the church in love, it is misused gift.  So the first thing we want to see is that love by Paul's statement, by the Savior's illustration and by plain truth, love is superior to gifts.  That's just a practical thing we need to understand.  But now let's not look at the superiority of love, but let's look at faith's sincerity because of love.  This is where it begins to carry heavy weight.  Help me for just a minute, let's go back to 1 Corinthians 13…. You can actually talk out loud in church.  Jesus was asked a question once, someone asked him, and the gospels record this:

"Teacher, what is the first and greatest commandment?"  What did Jesus say?  There you go…you know it.  "Hear, O Israel, the LORD our God, the LORD is one, and you shall love the Lord with all your heart, soul, mind and strength."

Now, when someone asks, today when you go home and watch the ball game, and if you had somebody who really knew the game, and you said, "What's the key to winning, tell me the one thing we must do to win?" If you were the coach of the team or you were pulling for a certain team, you'd want to know what that one thing is. [Got an Amen on that!]  If the President of the United States had one thing that he could tell the country that would end the war in Iraq, we would sit up and listen.  And, if you were sick with cancer and the doctor said, "Here's one thing you can do that will cure you and one thing only," you would listen.  But, someone asked God, "What's the first and greatest commandment, " and God, the Son's answer was, "Love God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength."  Love is the supreme thing.  It is the sum of all Christian virtue.  It is the sum of what we are called to do in this faith. 

The Law represents all that God requires of us.  Let me explain the Law.  Sometimes in the Bible when the word Law is used, it refers to the first 5 books of the Old Testament, The Pentateuch, Moses' first 5 books.  Don't turn there, but if you want to reference how that happened, you can look at Acts 24:14 and you can see that the reference to the Law there is a reference to the first 5 books.  He says "the Law and the Prophets."  That's a double reference to the Holy Old Testament.  Sometimes it is referred to and refers to The Ten Commandments only, and you can see that in Romans 13:8, where Paul says, "Love is the fulfillment of the Law."  There are other times when the word, Law, is used, it refers to the whole of the Old Testament.  Jesus told some people he was talking to, "Does it not say in your law you shall all be gods?"  That was in the songs.  So the whole of the Old Testament is referred to as Law. 

Now, take your Bible and look at Matthew 22:40.  Matthew 22, verse 40.  You'll make the connection in just a minute.  I haven't left the track yet. 
Matthew 22:40….. Jesus had just given his answer to what the first and second greatest commandments are, and then he says this astounding thing:

"On these two commandments depend all the Law and the prophets."  He is telling you that to fulfill what God has required, you need to do one thing, and that is love.   You say, "Well, that sounds like something that would preach in today's world."  Oh, no… Oh my no!  You know what the word…we have totally demolished the word love.  It has no meaning.  And we have actually replaced the word, love, with tolerance.  You do understand what tolerance  means, don't you?  It's the way we express our love these days….that you can believe and do whatever you want to believe and do, I can believe whatever I want to believe and do, and you can believe whatever you want to believe and do.  The only thing you can stand for in this life is that you cannot stand for anything. And that's what I'm going to stand on because when you stand for something, you are an arrogant no-good bigot who thinks you know more than I do…So take that!

But, what if God knows something to be true?  Would it be loving to not believe God, the One who made you?  Would it be loving to know that truth and not tell someone else about it?  Would it be loving to be wishy-washy about an eternal unchanging truth that could be the difference of your life in heaven and hell?  So, why is love superior?  Because love is what shows the sincerity of our faith.  When you understand the Law, you begin to see love's centrality to the work of God in people's hearts.  Now, we can't love God perfectly, we know that, we've tried, we can't.  So that's where it leads to faith.  We are told that this obedience that God demands in the New Testament is an obedience of faith. But, how does faith work?

You've got your Bible, look in Galatians 5, very quickly….if you don't or you can't get there that quickly, that's okay, you can listen to it read.  It's Galatians 5.  This is of ultimate importance.  This is not secondary in any way what I'm about to say, and I pray we all understand it and I have words to say it clearly.  The Bible says, in Galatians 5, beginning with Verse 5:

"For through the Spirit by faith we ourselves eagerly wait for the hope of righteousness [that's when our salvation will be full, when Jesus comes back and we are sinful and we sin no more] for in Christ Jesus, neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything. No works of the Law count for anything before God but only faith, [Faith cast on Jesus alone] but only faith working through love."

When it comes to the salvation decision, you cannot dissect faith and love, and we have done that and treated people's souls very dangerously.  We have come up with statements that have a little Biblical truth to them and sound right and we teach people to ask Jesus into their heart.  That's loving, but it's not loving towards the one we ask in our heart, it's loving towards us.  Oh, that would be a way to exist now, and it would make my life easier and then I can go to heaven when I die!  That's not at all what the Bible asks.  The Bible presents to you God in all his glory and then he presents it in the final statement he makes, in Jesus Christ as Lord.  And Jesus said, 'Phillip when you see me you've seen the Father." So, when we look at Christ, the reason we make a faith choice to love Jesus is not because we don't want to go to hell, it's we make a faith choice because we love him above all things, and, therefore, love …..you see, if Jesus is the way of salvation, how will you rest in him if you don't love him?  You get the connection?  It's not making a simple decision to say, "Yeah, I want a fire insurance policy from hell, I want to be known as a Christian."  It is "God, I see what you've done.  You've demonstrated your love for me in that while I was yet a sinner, Christ died for me. As you hung on that cross, Lord, I see the beauty and the wonder of your love and mercy and the power of your judgment against sin, and I think of what I've done and I think of a God who would die in my place." And I see one so lovely, and I bow my knee and I fall in love with him and that very love is an expression of my faith and my very faith is the expression of my love.  THAT is what the law requires.  Because we are casting our faith onto the one who literally kept the law perfectly for us.  You see, anybody can believe in their head the truth about Jesus, but he's talking here about a heart consent.  And when our heart consents to Christ, not just our head, we get a new nature.

2 Peter Chapter 1 tells us "we've been made partakers of the divine nature" and so here we bridge the chasm.  Why is love superior?  Because love shows us the sincerity of our faith.  Why works and gifts cannot be used as measures of our faith, because we do it all the time.  "How good she teaches, how good they do this, how good they do that."  And, man, if somebody had the gift of tongues and interpretation and prophecy, we would be convinced they are the real deal. 

Was Baalam's donkey a Christian?  Some of you don't know what I'm talking about.  Baalam was a false prophet in the Old Testament who was gifted of God to see what was going to happen, but he was not a true prophet of God.  He wasn't a believer.  And, Baalam was going somewhere and his donkey would not go.  And, so he got off his donkey and beat the donkey and the donkey spoke to him.  This is not a made up story.  This is a real Old Testament truth!  So, if God can cause a donkey to speak, [don't look at me like that…Baalam listened to him!  Laughter]  If God can cause a donkey to speak, he can cause a man or a woman to be used of him even in a great way without them having a genuine faith.  That is why love is the distinguishing mark of the Christian.  When you are given a gift your character is not changed.  I know some scallywag who have preached good sermons!  [Is scallywag a bad word?  I said that and don’t have any idea what that means….it's a pirate word of some sort, isnt' it?] 

OH….the history of preachers that mentored me, or led the pathway for me…there is not a one who hasn't fallen to immorality.  I'm not questioning their salvation, but their outside gifts are no proof that they are real.  God says love is. Why?  Because love can't happen in our hearts like that unless God changes our nature.  Love is internal and love is eternal.  Gifts are external and gifts are temporary.  They are going to pass away….love endures forever.

Now, the hope that maybe through some spirit-given insight, you are beginning to get the pinch of this passage.  Here it is: "Are you loving?"  Wow! I'm not asking you if your spouse is loving?  I'm asking you if you are loving?  Because that's what God wants to know.

A couple of practical things.  Back to 1 Corinthians.  Paul ended Chapter 12 with these words and I will….

"He said, but earnestly desire [that's the word zealous] be zealous for the higher gifts and I will show you a still more excellent [hyperbolic] way above gifts."

He talks about the Love Chapter which is the excellent way above gifts, and then he says in the opening verse of Chapter 14, "Pursue love."  That's a command to you and me.  Though we've been given a new nature that is like God's, that we are loving, it's not going to just happen.  We have to develop that; we have to pursue it.  That is a command.  It is given to us in this present tense.  It is imperative in how he says it and we are to be the active party in doing it or you will not be what God intended for you to be, and these are all couched together to show us that we have a leaning to show, instead of a leaning to genuineness.  We have a leaning to the display of gifts instead of the leaning to the living of love.  We have to pursue it.

Now…I want to see if somehow I can tie together this as we close.

1.                 Love is a grace given by God.  The Bible tells us that God is love.  Herein is love, not the we love God but that he loved us and gave his son to be a propitiation for us.

2.                 Love is to be pursued.

3.                 Love is the distinguishing mark of a Christian.

4.                 Our nature is affected.

5.                 Love and faith are not dissectable. 

There are many great things God can do for you in this life.  He can give you a great family, but that's not as good as love.  He can give you a great job and a huge financial portfolio and a grand retirement, but it's empty without faith and love.  The reason I put faith and love together is love is the lively element in a real faith.  Love proves the genuineness of our faith.  That's why love is the mark of a true Christian.  But the fruit of the Spirit is love.  James said, 'As the body without the spirit is dead, so faith without works is dead."  And Paul said that "nothing counts except faith working through love."

What about these great gifts of God.  Think of David and Solomon. I want you to know that your loving faith is greater than that.  How great is this?  How great is this love of God, this genuine mark of God above the highest privileges and practices? 

I want you to look finally at Luke 11, please, and we're closing with this.   Luke 11: 27-28.  One of the most privileged human beings on the face of the globe was a young virgin named, Mary.  God's angel appeared to her and pronounced to her that she would become pregnant with child, and the one in her would be called "The Most High God."  His name would be called "Jesus" for he would save his people from their sin.  The one she bore is the one who created all of nature.  She would be the one who carried and birthed the King, the Son of God in flesh.  She would be the one who nurtured him, nursed him, reared him on this earth.  There has been no one blessed with greater outward privilege than Mary, and our Lord Himself set us straight  that love and faith, love being the center of that faith as far as what motivates us, or gives it energy in us, is higher than all of God's privileges that are merely temporary. 

Luke Chapter 11:27