Love is What Binds Us Together (Joe Penner)

I have talked a lot more about BBQ than I think I ever have and

I ever will in my entire life now that Jonah Chitty is here,

having come from the South. And today I yet again will use

an illustration referencing BBQ. When you are barbecuing you, you

want to get a barbecue in there. I already made a mistake.

You can't. You're not barbecuing.

BBQ is a food group. OK, We're learning this from the

people from the South. BBQ is a food group.

We, I call a BBQ the thing that we cook on.

But when you want to get flavor into the meat, you have to use

spices and you have to use all these, these different things

to, to get the flavor into the meat.

But if you just throw the spices on the meat itself, when you

throw it on the grill, things start to fall off, right?

And as you cook it, the, the, the seasoning and the flavor

falls off and you lose whatever you put on there.

And so as I've learned, you use what is called a binder.

And so a binder could be mustard or a hot sauce or any sort of

BBQ sauce or something that you put on the meat 1st.

And then you put the spices and the seasoning on there so that

they stick to the meat. And then that way as you grill,

I mean, some of it's still going to fall off.

But now you have that binder that is holding the seasoning

and the, and the spices to the meat.

So the flavor stays there giving you a nice well flavored meat.

And as we've been talking about for the last couple of weeks,

we've been talking about spiritual gifts in the church.

And if you have the Spirit, you've been saved by Christ into

the family of Christ, which is his church, and you've been

given a gift by the Holy Spirit to help the church grow into the

fullness of Christ. And last week, Pastor Jake

talked about the church being a body.

And with a body, we have many different members, but those

members make up one body. They have different gifts, they

have different activities in ways that they can serve, but

they all make up one body. Now, what this means is that as

one body, we are working together toward a common goal.

As your body goes throughout your day, all of your faculties

are working together for a specific task.

Your body parts are not pulling different directions.

And so we need to have a common goal, which is why we all need

to have and acknowledge Christ as our head.

Christ is the one who leads and guides us as a church.

But in First Corinthians 13, Paul points out a sin that is

going on in the church and that can be in any church, and that

is serving without love. What Paul wants us to understand

is that love is what binds us together.

We are called and gifted by the Spirit to help one another grow.

But if we serve one another without love, it's like throwing

the spice on the meat without the binder.

It just falls off as you cook it.

You don't feel that impacted by someone who serves you without

love. And so if we serve with love,

it's like using the binder on the meat.

It's like, it's like slathering your service so that that that

service can stick. It's you're slathering your love

for one another with that so that it sticks, so that it means

something. You feel greatly blessed and

impacted by someone who serves you because of their love for

you. So this morning, what we're

going to learn is the reasons of why love binds us together as

Paul shows them to hear to us in First Corinthians 13.

And so this morning, we're going to learn the importance of love,

the proof of your love, and the eternality of your love.

Let's bow forward with prayer before we open up God's Word.

Father, we thank you for your word to us.

We thank you that we get to read it, and we thank you, Lord, that

it is your inspired word. It is authoritative for every

area of our life. And Lord, we stand on it as your

truth. And we pray that as we read it

that your Spirit would open our eyes, that you would teach us

together and unify our hearts so that we might serve one another

with love together as your body. We ask this in Jesus name, Amen.

Turn with me in your Bibles to 1st Corinthians chapter 13.

First Corinthians chapter 13. I'm speaking from the ESV if

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

anybody wants to pull it up on your phone or your tablet or

whatever. First Corinthians chapter 13

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

says if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have

not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

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. If I give away all I have and I

deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain

nothing. Love is patient and kind.

Love does not envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way.

It is not irritable or resentful.

It does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with

the truth. Love bears all things, believes

all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

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

prophecy 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.

And 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. The first thing we're going to

see this morning is the importance of your love.

How important is love in the body of Christ?

Another way maybe to ask the question is what's love got to

do with it? The answer is everything.

Love is not an optional add on for the Christian.

If we have Christ's Spirit in us, we must love one another

because God is love. This is because without love

you're annoying, Paul says in verse one.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not

love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

The gift of speaking in tongues, if not done with love, is just

an annoying sound. Now the gift of tongues is is

the ability to speak a different language, and at times the

Spirit enabled people to do this without themselves understanding

what language it was they were speaking.

We see this in Acts chapter 2 with the coming of the Holy

Acts 2 · chapter mention

Spirit, where they were given the ability to speak in many

different languages so that everybody who was present could

hear of the works of God. Now, this gift was one that the

Corinthians were abusing, and they were not using this gift in

love. And so Paul tells them, even if

you use this gift, if you're not using it with love, you're just

an obnoxious sound. You're just annoying to use.

Even a miraculous gift like speaking in tongues without love

is nothing more than an obnoxious noise.

Nobody cares. Nobody wants to hear it.

Worse, everybody's annoyed by it.

Next we see that without love you are nothing, Paul says in

verse 2. If if I have prophetic powers

and understands all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have

all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I

am nothing. Even the gift of speaking forth

the truth of God's Word or having wisdom or incredible

faith. Without love, Paul says I am

nothing. Paul defines what prophecy is in

First Corinthians 14 verse three.

He says it's the one who prophesized speak to people for

their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.

And so even understanding God's Word, even being able to explain

it in a way that builds others up and encourages them.

But if you do that without love, you are nothing.

These gifts, again, are given to help the body, but the point is

that we're using them with love, and if we don't, there's nothing

to them. If you do not bind your gift

together with love, even for all your wisdom, even with all of

your knowledge, even with all of your faith, you are still

nothing. Next we see that without love

you gain nothing. If I give away all I have verse

3, and if I deliver up my body to be burned but have not love,

I gain nothing. Even in the most sacrificial act

of sacrificing all that you have, even all that you are,

your own body, if done without love, gains you nothing.

The point that Paul is making here is if you don't have love,

it doesn't matter how impressive you are, it doesn't matter how

gifted you are, it doesn't matter how much you sacrifice.

You're annoying, you're nothing, and you gain nothing.

How important is love? If you don't have it, you're

nothing. But if you have it, you have

everything. The Bible tells the story of

Job, a man who walked in the fear of the Lord and and God

allowed Satan to take everything that he had, almost everything

that he had. Thankfully Job had some

wonderful friends. Chapter 2 verse one says

Eliphaz, Bildad and Zophar made an appointment to come together

to show him sympathy and comfort and the best comfort they

offered him was the first seven days where they sat in silence.

The 1st to speak is Eliphaz who says in Job chapter 4 verses 7

Job 4:7

and 8 remember who that was innocent ever perished or where

were the upright cut off? As I have seen those who plow

iniquity and sow trouble reap the same.

In other words, hey Job, you're getting what you deserve.

Next, Bildad chimes in and about the death of Job's kids, and he

says in eight verses, 4 through 6, if your children have sinned

against him, he has delivered them into the hand of their

transgression. If you will see God and plead

with the Almighty for mercy, if you are pure and upright, surely

then He will rouse Himself for you and restore your rightful

habitation. Basically your kids are getting

what they deserved. Then Zophar has to add his two

cents and he says in Chapter 11, verses 4 through 6.

For you say my doctrine is pure, and I am clean in God's eyes.

But oh, that God would speak and open his lips to you, and that

he would tell you the secrets of wisdom, for He is manifold in

understanding. Know then that God exacts of you

less than your guilt deserves. You should be getting it worse

than you are, Job. Don't you all wish you could

have such wonderful friends? Job responds in chapter 16,

verse one through 5. I've heard many such things.

Miserable comforters. Are you all?

Shall windy words have an end? Or what provokes you that you

answer? I also could speak as you do.

If you were in my place, I could join words together against you

and shake my head at you. These men all thought that they

were intelligent and gifted in the truth of God, but they were

wrong. They were wrong because what

they didn't understand is that God allows righteous people to

suffer. But besides that, they forgot to

love their friend. Because of this, they were

obnoxious and annoying. They were nothing and they

gained nothing except a rebuke from God.

Brothers and sisters, we need to know the importance of love in

all that we do. Service done without love is

totally meaningless. We all have a gift from the Holy

Spirit, but if we use that apart from love for one another, then

we're annoying. We are nothing.

We are gaining nothing. There is no advantage whatsoever

to this sort of sacrifice. None.

We must seek to serve one another with love.

Why? Because God is love first.

1 John 4:7–8

John 4 verses 7 through 8 says Beloved, let us love one

another, for love is from God and whoever loves has been born

of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does

not know God because God is love.

If we are his children, then we must love.

Now we all know that this is hard because we're all sinners.

We all fall short and we disappoint one another.

And some practical things that we can do to grow our love for

one another is by being willing to forgive one another when we

sin against each other. When someone has sinned against

you, take that to the Lord. Forgive them.

Don't hold it against them. Don't harbor a bitter heart

towards them. Maybe you even need to reach out

to them and maybe confront an issue, but confess.

Confess maybe your sin, but forgive so that bitterness

doesn't get harbored in your heart.

And then you can love them. Another way for us to love one

another is by praying for them. If you're having a hard time

loving a specific person in your life, then pray for them.

Your heart will turn towards them and the Lord will soften

your heart towards them. But if we want our service to

have a meaningful impact, then we must serve out of love.

Next we're going to see the proof of your love.

Well, now it begs the question, well, well, if we're supposed to

love each other, well, what is love?

What does love mean? What what is love?

Has love some sort of ooey gooey feeling that I get when I think

of certain people? Or as soon as I see someone my

my heart skips a beat? Or is love a kiss or a hug?

This is what our world tells us. Our world tells us that that we

can fall in and out of love. It's based on a feeling that you

get towards someone or a feeling that you have towards someone.

And if you don't have that feeling, then obviously you

don't love them. But this is not how Paul views

love. Love is action.

Love does things. Love is your attitude and your

actions toward other people. It's not a feeling.

If you put your first self first, you don't have love.

We're going to look at how Paul sort of lays these two things

out. This is how you know that you

have love. And if you put yourself first,

you don't have love. And so Paul is going to give us

a list of things that love does and does not do.

But let's first look at the things that love does not do

beginning in this, the part of verse four there love does not

envy or boast. It is not arrogant or rude.

It does not insist on its own way.

It is not irritable or resentful.

It does not rejoice at wrongdoing.

All of these attitudes and actions toward others show that

you don't have love. This is exactly how the

Corinthians were treating one another.

Some were jealous of others in their gifts and and felt more

worthy. And then there were others who

felt like they had less of a gift and they felt less worthy

than others. And this led to this dynamic

between those who were more spiritual and those who were

less spiritual. This is not love in the body.

And so these people who thought they were more worthy valued

themselves and their gifts and, and their possessions more than

others. And so they were rude and, and

they insisted on their own way and began pushing their way

around in the church. And all this led to is, is them

being irritated by one another, being resentful of one another,

and they began looking for and rejoicing in one another's

faults. In all of these attitudes and

actions, what is the heart? What is the center me?

When you put yourself first, you prove that you don't have love.

But if you put others first, you do have love.

Now let's look at the things that Paul says that love does

do. The beginning of verse 4 says

love is patient and kind. Skipping to the second-half of

verse six and seven, he says love rejoices with the truth.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,

endures all things. All of these attitudes and

actions toward others prove that you do love.

When this is your response. This shows love.

And so, rather than being irritated and rude, the

Corinthians needed to be patient and kind toward one another.

Rather than looking for mistakes and faults in others, they

needed to seek the truth and goodness of God and rejoice in

that. And then Paul concludes his list

with these four incredible statements.

Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things,

endures all things. Danny Akin summarizes this

section beautifully. What Paul is saying is that love

always sees the glass not just half full, but totally full.

It always looks for the good, the positive.

It does not look over people's faults, but it overlooks

people's faults. There is a staying power to true

love, like a flame that cannot be quenched.

Love takes the Longview, not the short view.

It keeps the big picture in mind.

It hangs in there with other people even under their worst

circumstances, and refuses to quit.

For married couples, it takes seriously those words.

Until death do us part, you simply cannot kill a love that

bears, keeps believing and hoping through, and endures all

things. That is a love that will last

through all adversity and stand the test of time.

Love is not a fleeting emotion, but a faithful, diligent resolve

to fight for those for whom Christ has died.

When these attitudes and actions are present in our lives, it

shows that we put others 1st, and it proves our love for them.

Jonathan had this kind of selfless love for David.

After rejecting Saul as king, God had chosen David, the young

shepherd boy, and anointed him as the future king of Israel.

And not long after, David defeated Goliath, which saved

and inspired the nation of Israel.

But David also caught the attention of Jonathan, King

Saul's son. And after seeing David's

courageous battle and how he handled himself in his

conversation with his father Saul, he was knit to the soul of

David. And Jonathan loved him as his

own soul. And Jonathan recognized that God

was with David in a special way. In first Samuel 18, verse 4

1 Samuel 18:4

tells us that Jonathan stripped himself of the robe that was on

him and gave it to David and his armor and even his sword and his

bow and his belt. Jonathan gave up his right to

the throne and was committed to God's plan through David.

Jonathan proved his love for David by saving him time and

time again from his father's plots to kill him.

And King Saul didn't understand what Jonathan was doing.

In First Samuel 20 we read You son of a perverse, rebellious

woman. Do I not know that you have

chosen the son of Jesse to your own shame, and to the shame of

your mother's nakedness? For as long as the son of Jesse

lives on the earth, neither you nor your Kingdom shall be

established. Therefore send and bring him to

me, for he shall surely die. Then Jonathan answered Saul, his

father. Why should he be put to death?

What has he done? But Saul hurled his spear at him

to strike him. So Jonathan knew that his father

was determined to put David to death.

And Jonathan rose from the table in fierce anger and ate no food

the second day of the month. For he was grieved for David

because his father had disgraced him.

He wasn't concerned about his own life that his father had

just tried to take. He was concerned for David in

the disgrace that he was facing. Jonathan's love for David was

proved in his actions and his attitudes toward him.

Jonathan couldn't put himself first.

He could have said, I'm in line to be the next king.

I'm not letting you take this position, but he put David

first. He submitted to 1st to God's

will, and he submitted to David as God's servant, and he showed

his love to him despite all that he suffered.

Brothers and sisters, this is the kind of steadfast love that

we must have for one another. We must strive to put others

first, even enduring suffering ourselves, so that others are

blessed and strengthened and encouraged in Christ.

This is going to take much more than emotion and feeling.

This is going to take a resolve, a commitment, a dedication to

God first, and then a dedication to His children.

So often we are only willing to love when we feel like it.

Our love must be deeper than that.

It must endure even when others fail or even sin against us.

Do you love your brothers and sisters in this church?

Maybe you're wondering if you do or not.

Well, how do you know? Well, Paul shows us how we can

tell if we know if we love others.

How do you act towards your brothers and sisters in Christ?

What is your attitude towards your brothers and your sisters

in Christ? Do you envy?

Do you boast? Are you arrogant or rude?

Are you insisting on your own way?

Are you irritable or resentful towards your brothers and

sisters in Christ? Do you rejoice when they fall?

Brothers and sisters, if these are the attitudes and actions in

your heart towards brothers and sisters in Christ, you do not

love. We must pray to the Lord to

forgive us for our hard hearts and pray that He softens our

hearts to love one another and in our flesh.

We cannot do it, we cannot love as we ought to, but through

Christ we can be patient and kind toward one another.

Through Christ we can rejoice together in truth.

Through Christ we can bear all things, believe all things, hope

all things, and endure all things.

Through Christ and the power of His Spirit within us, we can

prove our love for one another by putting others first.

The next thing we see is the eternality of love.

Paul has already shown us the importance of love and and that

is that without love you are nothing.

He's also shown us the proof of our love, that whether or not

you love someone is shown in your attitudes and your actions

toward them. And now Paul shows the

eternality of love. This is the reason why love is

so much greater than gifts and everything else.

Love for one another is so much more important than gifts or

service or actions toward one another.

And this is because your gifts will pass away.

Look at verses 8 through 10. 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

prophecy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will

pass away. No matter how great of a gift

you have to serve the church, it will pass away.

Now it may have been that Paul picked these three unique gifts,

prophecy, tongues, and knowledge, because they were

specific gifts that the Corinthians were abusing.

But Paul says here that there's coming a day when you won't need

these gifts anymore. The Holy Spirit has given the

spiritual gifts to the church so that the church can grow into

the knowledge of Christ, into the maturity of Christ, into the

the fullness of Christ its Savior.

And the reason we need each other is because we live in a

fallen world, and we're constantly tempted to turn our

eyes away from Christ, down to the things of this world.

And so we need people to turn us back to the focus that we have

on Christ. But guess what, when the perfect

comes and we all stand in the presence of our Lord and Saviour

Jesus Christ and our faith finally becomes sight, I won't

need you to remind me to trust in Christ and to pray to Him who

hears, because I will see and speak to my Saviour who lives

and pleads for me. You won't need me to remind you

to be in God's Word every day and to walk in obedience to

Christ because you will know and be taught by the Word Himself.

We won't need each other to be there for each other in the

highs and the lows of this life because we will see Jesus Christ

our Savior face to face. Amen.

Paul then uses an illustration of a child.

He says, 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. Paul is trying to help us to

understand the the limits of our knowledge while we live here in

this life. Children are limited in their

understanding because they're young, they're inexperienced,

they don't know things as they ought to, and so they just don't

understand things very well. Me and our children were were

enjoying the the World Series and and the baseball playoffs

this this year. And we enjoyed watching.

And I was surprised that they enjoyed watching baseball so

much. But I think what surprised me

more is their ridicule of the baseball players as they watched

on TV. And you watched that pitch

coming and you're like, why didn't you swing at that?

How can you hit that? I could hit that so easy.

Now, for those who maybe don't know baseball very well, here

you have a guy, a pitcher, who's standing 60 feet and six inches

away from you, throwing the ball 100 miles an hour, giving you .4

seconds to decide if you're going to swing the bat.

Not only that, but the pitcher throws different kinds of

pitches. So maybe one time you're

expecting a fastball that comes straight in the middle of the

plate, and the next time it's going to dive down into the dirt

and you're going to swing right over it.

It might be the hardest thing in sports to do and my but if my

children were there, they would hit a home run every time.

But that's the mind of a child, right?

A child doesn't understand. A child doesn't see as they

ought to. And that's exactly what Paul is

saying. We are, you're like children.

You don't get it. We don't understand as we live

in this world, we're like children.

We're like looking in a mirror dimly.

We we can kind of see, but we can't.

And that's why we need spiritual gifts because we help each other

to see a little bit more clearly.

But Paul says just in part, it only helps a little bit.

We still don't see as we ought to, but we still try to .1

another to Christ. But one day we will not be

children, we will be adults. We will not see in a mirror

dimly. We will see face to face.

Paul is definitely thinking of seeing his Savior Christ face to

face and we will understand and we won't need anyone to point us

to Christ anymore. Your gifts are going to pass

away, but your love will never end.

As the beginning of verse 8, Paul says love never ends and in

verse 13 he says so. Now faith, hope, and love abide

these three, but the greatest of these is love.

In heaven we will see the reality of our faith.

We will no longer need the gifts to point us to Jesus because we

will see him face to face. John MacArthur says this so

well. The objects of faith and hope

will be fulfilled and perfectly realized in heaven, but love,

the God, like virtue, is everlasting.

Heaven will be the place for the expression of nothing but

perfect love toward God and each other.

Spiritual gifts are only necessary for this short time

here on earth, but they will pass away.

But love is eternal. It will never end.

Therefore, let us pursue love for one another.

Brothers and sisters, what are you focusing on?

Are you focusing on your gifts and your service toward others,

or are you pursuing one another in love?

How do you view church? Is this the place that you come

to feel better about yourself? You feel like you you checked

the box to going to church. And so now God is happy with me

because I went to church on Sunday.

Maybe you feel like you have some valuable gift to give to

the church and and now you've and in using it, you earn extra

brownie puts. I went to church.

Not only did I go to church on Sunday, but I also served in the

daycare. Now God's extra pleased with me.

Is that how you view church? Or do you view church as the

redeemed people of God, a chosen priesthood of people that are

holy to the Lord, who have been washed in the love in the blood

of the Lamb, who are loved by God and therefore worthy of

love, worthy of your love? Do you view the church like

that? We are to love like this by

looking at the example of the love of our Saviour.

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent

his only Son into the world so that we might live through Him.

In this is love, not that we have loved God, but that He

loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

If God loved His people so much, do you?

God was willing to send His Son into the world to die for our

sins so that we might live through Him.

Do you love the people Christ died to save?

Are you willing to put others first to prove your love for

them? If you do not have love for the

people for whom Christ died, you are nothing.

Even if you serve them, you gain nothing.

Don't come to church because you think you're earning favour with

God. Going to church doesn't save

you. Giving money to church doesn't

save you. Serving the church doesn't save

you. There is only one way to be made

right before God, and that is salvation through Jesus Christ.

Faith in Him alone. Come to church to love the

people for whom Christ died. Come to share in the highs and

lows of the lives of the believers who are here.

Come to confess your sins to people who will relate to you

and who will pray for you. Come to grow together into the

fullness of Christ our Savior, using our gifts to .1 another to

Jesus our Savior, the reality of our faith who we will one day

see face to face. We will not do this perfectly

and we will sin against one another, but what joy there is

in looking to Christ our Saviour together, experiencing the joy

of His grace and forgiveness as well as one another's

forgiveness. This will make heaven that much

sweeter when we're all in the presence of our Saviour

together, completely free from sin.

Will you be there? Will you be in the presence of

Christ? Will you see him face to face?

The truth is, if you're like me, you're a Sinner.

This means that you cannot stand before a holy God.

But God loved you and me so much that He sent His Son to die in

your place, in my place, as a sacrifice for your sin.

And if you repent of your sin, and if you turn to Christ and

confess Him as your Lord and Savior, you will be saved.

Friend, if you have not done that yet, what are you waiting

for? Come experience the joy and the

peace that comes from having all the sin and guilt, that burden

that you carry, having it released and placed on Jesus

Christ on the cross. Come experience the love of God

as we, the people of God, serve one another together.

As we look forward to that day when we will be with Him for all

eternity, let's pray. Father, we thank you for your

incredible love toward us, Your love that was shown in your

willingness to send Christ as a sacrifice for us.

Or would you daily remind us of our need for grace?

Even as believers, we sin each and every day, and we need Your

grace and Your forgiveness. We need Your Holy Spirit to help

us to love one another more, that we might embody the love of

our Savior. Lord, we pray that You would

help us to love one another, that this community of believers

would be an example of love to all who come in, to all who see

us interacting with one another outside of church, wherever we

may be, and that our love for one another would bring glory

and honour to Jesus Christ our Saviour.

This we ask in Jesus name, Amen.