Problems Plaguing a Local Church, Part 24
In our message, THE WAY (1 Cor. 13:1-13), we looked at the desire of every human heart. All people regardless their belief system or ethnic background are made in the image of God and can only be filled and made whole by Him- their Creator. “God is love,” and only He can bring healing to the broken human heart as well as this world (John 3:16; 1 John 4:16, etc.). To know love, one must become God’s child by grace through faith via the Gospel (i.e. Jesus died for our sins, was buried and rose from the dead the third day, Eph. 2:8-9; 1 Cor. 15:3-4; Acts 4:12; 1 John 4:10, etc.). But even after that, to experience and grow in this love, a Christian must walk with God (Amos 3:3; Eph. 5:18; Rom. 5:5, etc.). Spiritual gifts are for spiritual people, and to be used the right way, we must walk in the Spirit (1 Cor. 12:31b; 13:11; Gal. 5:16-18, etc.).
Walking in the Spirit means becoming more like Jesus, and it is also what it means to love. Every Christian and non-Christian alike says they want to love, but true love can only be known by first coming to God (John 3:7, 16) and then experiencing Him in a present-day sense by walking with Jesus who is THE WAY (John 14:6, etc.). This also means dying to ‘self’ and taking up one’s cross daily like Paul spoke of in 1 Corinthians 9:24-27 (e.g. John 15:11-14; Luke 9:23; Eph. 4:32, etc.). This self-sacrificial love of God (agápē in Grk.) is who Jesus is, and it cannot be manufactured (John 15:1-5; Gal. 5:22-23, etc.).
All spiritual gifts, no matter what they are and even if used to their fullest extent, without love profits a child of God NOTHING (1 Cor. 13:1-3). They are empty, vain and meaningless just like Ecclesiastes speaks of a life lived without God, and the ultimate consequence of living such a life for a Christian is “loss” at the judgment seat of Christ (Eccl. 1:2; 12:8, 13-14; 1 Cor. 3:15; Heb. 12:28-29, etc.). “Love is the ‘circulatory system,’ of the body of Christ” (-Dr. Wiersbe), and without it all spiritual gifts result in “no benefit” at all (1 Cor. 13:3 NET). Every spiritual gift will end, but love will endure forever (1 Cor. 13:8-13; Rom. 3:31-39, etc.).
But to know and experience this “true love” that every human heart desires, we must define it God’s way as it is revealed here in in the Bible or we will have a counterfeit (1 Cor. 13:4-7; Rom. 12:9; 1 John 4:16; Isa. 66:2; James 1:25; 2 Tim. 3:16-17). *For more information on this message, please see SBFC’s sermon above.