Love Consummated
Notes
Transcript
Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
A high-performance ministry detached from Jesus creates a carnal community.
A high-performance ministry detached from Jesus creates a carnal community.
A gospel-community enjoys a spiritual love that approaches others in reference to Jesus Christ.
A gospel-community enjoys a spiritual love that approaches others in reference to Jesus Christ.
What’s the biggest danger to this community?
Some could rightly answer in accord with 1 John 2:16:
The world.
The flesh.
The devil.
But what about the church that gets it’s doctrine in order.
A church body that seeks to live under the sway of the Holy Spirit.
A church body that seeks to undermine the works of the devil.
“The answer to the question “What is Wrong?” is, or should be, “I am wrong.” Until a man can give that answer his idealism is only a hobby.”
I would contend that a Christian would recognize that they are the greatest hinderance to the Christian community.
Their expectations.
Their ideals.
Their preferences.
Their agendas.
These are hinderances to the gospel community.
The goal of the Christian life is not greater giftedness.
The goal of the Christian life is not greater influence.
The goal of the Christian life is not even greater knowledge.
The goal of the Christian life is deeper communion with Christ.
A gospel-community flowers in the communion of Christ as it anticipates His fullness forever.
A gospel-community flowers in the communion of Christ as it anticipates His fullness forever.
And the flower that blooms in the light of Christ is love.
Joyful, joyful, we adore You,
God of glory, Lord of love;
Hearts unfold like flow'rs before You,
Op'ning to the sun above.
Melt the clouds of sin and sadness;
Drive the dark of doubt away;
Giver of immortal gladness,
Fill us with the light of day!
In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul discusses the idea of love.
Typically when the passage is read at weddings, it is read with a lovey-dovey voice.
But this passage must be read in light of what Paul was teaching the Corinthians.
He was not trying to give them a cute poster to hang on their wall, rather he was correcting their sinful attitudes.
He is correcting an impatient people.
He is correcting an unkind people.
He is correcting a self-centered and selfish people.
He is correcting the sinful heart of man.
In reality, he speaks to a people just like us.
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 will pass away.
Love endures beyond this present age.
Love endures beyond this present age.
Love never ends.
The Greek term here for “ends” is the word for something like “falling.”
It conveys the idea of failure.
Prophecies have an expiration date.
Tongues will not be needed at the end of all things.
The need to learn things is temporary.
1 Now concerning food offered to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” This “knowledge” puffs up, but love builds up.
2 If anyone imagines that he knows something, he does not yet know as he ought to know.
3 But if anyone loves God, he is known by God.
“The knowledge that counts is not our knowledge of God, but His knowledge of us.” (Brian Rosner, pg. 115)
For most of us brainiacs, you enjoy learning new things.
But there will come a day when knowledge will pass away, and all things will be known.
Maybe you think, that sounds pretty boring?
We must remember that God‘s love is so high, deep, and wide that we will spend forever searching it out.
17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love,
18 may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth,
19 and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.
It’s ONLY at the coming of Christ that all other things will pass away!
The One who is Love will surpass all other giftings.
When Jesus comes, we will finally love God rightly.
We will finally love one another in a way we have always been designed to do so.
A church that has been enamored with giftedness and the excellence of men will be crushed with this news.
A church that has been enamored with the love of Jesus Christ never tires to hear that love lasts forever.
The Corinthian believers have become enamored by gifts…
Spiritual maturity lives for what lasts.
Spiritual maturity lives for what lasts.
But what becomes of the person who elevates the gifts in a way that contradicts the purposes of God?
We would call them a spiritual child.
11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways.
Spiritual gifts are not inherently bad but incomplete.
As childhood is not bad, but incomplete, so is the period of the spiritual gifts.
Paul is not saying that spiritual gifts are childish.
He is contrasting a way of maturity with a way of childishness.
Spiritual children are 100% still Christians on their way to heaven.
Spiritual infants live for the temporary.
Spiritual infants live for the temporary.
There is different levels of spiritual infancy.
But I, brothers, could not address you as spiritual people, but as people of the flesh, as infants in Christ.
To elevate certain spiritual gifts and the teachers that share those gifting’s while looking down on those who do not share them is a marker of spiritual immaturity.
When someone is a spiritual infant, their words and their actions reveal it.
Here are some of the typical things you might hear a spiritual infant say:
“Why do I need to go to church regularly? I really don't have time for that.”
“I've been hurt by people, so I would rather it just be me and God.”
“If I pray and read my Bible, will I be good enough?”
“I don't really have time for church.”
These are 100% a bonafide Christian.
But there is something vastly deficient in them.
“Don't branch my group into two groups! It is comfortable for me the way it is.”
“This church is getting too big–who are all these new people coming in?”
“I didn't like the worship music today. Why can't they just play....”
“The Pastor walked right by me today without even saying hello.”
Spiritual love is spiritual maturity.
We know a person has become an adult when they start taking on responsibilities, acting according to maturity.
But Paul envisions the maturity that has already come to himself to be ultimately true of every Christian only after we have seen Jesus face-to-face.
But should this mean that we do not strive to grow up into this maturity?
Certainly not!
All Christians are implored to grow up into this maturity of Christian love.
Spiritual adults live for the eternal.
Spiritual adults live for the eternal.
When someone is a spiritual parent, their words and their actions reveal it.
Here are some of the typical things you might hear a spiritual parent say:
“A guy at work asked me to explain the Bible to him. Please pray for me.”
We baptized a person from my small group this week! Now I need to get her plugged into ministry.”
“I know discipleship starts at home; will you hold me accountable to spend time discipling my kids?”
Do you see the difference?
Spiritual children live for the temporary.
Spiritual adults live for something beyond themselves.
Spiritual maturity is measured by our love.
11 And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers,
12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ,
13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ,
14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
The gifts have a telos!
They have a end point which is maturity into the image of Jesus Christ.
15 Rather, speaking the truth in love, we are to grow up in every way into him who is the head, into Christ,
16 from whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.
Notice the reason for this…
12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.
The technology of mirrors have come a long way.
Our mirrors today reflect with crystal clear clarity the image it is reflecting.
But the mirrors in the ancient world were essentially heavily polished bronze that at best give a hazy and dim reflection.
2 Beloved, we are God’s children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is.
Faith and hope are gifts for this present pilgrimage.
Faith and hope are gifts for this present pilgrimage.
If you’ve ever been to a wedding that gives out gifts, the gifts of our present age are compared to these.
Imagine how foolish it would be for a person to cherish the party favor instead of the bridegroom.
When Jesus was ascended into heaven after the resurrection, He left a variety of spiritual gifts to His church.
8 Therefore it says, “When he ascended on high he led a host of captives, and he gave gifts to men.”
Those gifts are crucial in fulfilling the mission of seeing the world discipled.
Those gifts are the instruments that God has ordained to see the glory of God spread on the earth like the water spreads on the sea (Habakkuk 2:14).
12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall 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.
The verb of “abiding” can also mean “remaining.”
These three spiritual realities will remain until the time when we see Jesus face-to-face.
Faith becomes sight.
Faith becomes sight.
Faith will eventually be the crutch of the old man that will be thrown off when our faith becomes sight.
Hope becomes possession.
Hope becomes possession.
Hope will eventually be put off when the fulfillment of the hope has come to pass.
Love belongs to the coming new creation.
Love belongs to the coming new creation.
Faith carries us to the wedding.
Hope longs for the wedding.
Love is the marriage itself.
13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Love will last forever because the love that we have partake of is the love of the father and the Son express seen through the evidence of the Holy Spirit
“When we’ve been there 10,000 years, bright shining as the sun,” Paul would add we would still love one another.
A gospel-community flowers in the communion of Christ as it anticipates His fullness forever.
A gospel-community flowers in the communion of Christ as it anticipates His fullness forever.
