Love Lasts Forever

And we're we're really looking at um the gifts of the Spirit.

How are they valid for the church today?

Are they valid for the church today?

How should they be exercised and functioned?

So if you missed uh the first ten uh sermons in the series, it's all right.

By God's grace, uh this morning, we're at a great pickup uh back into the series.

Um I'm gonna try to attempt to kind of recap some of the definitions and and some stuff that we discovered previously, but uh hopefully you won't feel too far confused or left in the dark if this is your first week uh joining us in this series.

Um, one of the distinctives of Sacred Mission Church is that we are continuationists.

We are continuationists, and the distinctive is simply something that Christians can disagree on and still remain Christians.

It's something that is an open-handed issue.

Um we would uh here at Sacred Mission hold the position of continuationism, um, that the gifts still continue today.

Um, and there's many dear brothers and sisters in Christ who would hold a different opinion.

So I'm gonna attempt to uh kind of define those before we get into the text, and then we'll work through the text.

So, first position, which I've said is continuationism.

Uh, simply put, continuationists believe that the gifts described throughout the New Testament have continued to exist and are available for the edification of the church today.

So gifts like teaching and helping, administration, hospitality, evangelism, and even the miraculous gifts like healing and prophecy and tongues and knowledge, we would hold that they still continue today.

And hopefully, as we work through uh the text today, um, that will be uh some something that we are all led to that conclusion as we continue to process this question.

Are the gifts valid?

The second position is cessationism.

Cessation meaning to stop or to cease.

Cessationists believe that the gifts of the Spirit, specifically the revelatory gifts of the Spirit, like prophecy, tongues, and knowledge, have ceased to exist past the apostolic age.

Past the apostolic age, past the age, once the last apostles had died off, the gifts had ceased.

That's what cessationists would say.

Tom Pennington, who's a leading cessationist in a conference series with John MacArthur called Strange Fire, he defined cessationists.

I'll let him define it.

He says, We as cessationists believe that the Spirit no longer sovereignly gives the miraculous spiritual gifts that were listed in the scriptures and that are present in the first century church.

It is neither the Spirit's plan nor his normal pattern to distribute miraculous gifts to Christians and churches today, as he did in the time of the apostles.

Those gifts ceased as a normative with the apostles.

So many cessationists, many who who hold this position or this belief would say that the gifts were given uniquely during that period of time, maybe to validate the work of the apostles, maybe to validate their calling, their ministry, uh, potentially to uniquely build up the early church as it was getting founded as Christ ascended to heaven.

And we at Sacred Mission would lovingly, as your pastors disagree.

Today's text is probably the most argued or debated or discussed as it relates to the validity of the gifts of the church today.

And so, like I said, it's really a great pickup back into the series.

And really, my hope this morning is that wherever you find yourself as you came into this room, maybe you've never heard of cessationism, maybe you've never heard of the gifts of the spirit, or maybe you are staunched that the gifts have ceased, so maybe you are staunch that the gifts still continue.

My hope this morning is that the love of Christ would be what drives us, which compels us to fervent worship, this love that never ends.

And this morning, as the church, we'd be able to build one another up, that we would be fueled for mission, that would be sent here, built up by the reading and proclamation and singing of God's word.

So I'm gonna pray and we will jump into the text.

Father God, we we thank you that we get to gather this morning as your church.

God, this morning we do not take it for granted.

The gift that it is to gather, God, we ask for your hand of safety and protection, that your spirit would be with your church, your bride, this morning.

God, I pray that you would give me a humble spirit, that you give me grace to proclaim the truth.

God, this morning I pray that the words that come out of my mouth would make much of you and you alone and not myself.

God, that you would be glorified, that your church would be built up and edified, that we would be encouraged, that we would be spurred on to love one another, to serve one another.

And God, we trust that as we love and care for each other, not only are you given glory, but our world sees it.

And they would be envious of it, and they would want to know why it is that we have such deep love and care and affection for one another.

God, I pray that you would illuminate your scripture this morning to us, that we would leave here feeling that we have met with the risen and reigning Lord.

Amen.

Amen.

So if you turn with me to 1 Corinthians chapter 13, we're just gonna kind of work verse by verse in this as we work through it.

1 Corinthians 13 · chapter mention

So verse 8 reads like this Love never ends.

As for prophecies, they will pass away.

As for tongues, they will cease.

As for knowledge, it will pass away.

So in this verse, we see the contrast between the temporary and the permanent.

Knowledge will pass, tongues will cease.

These gifts are temporary, but love will never end.

It's important to be reminded, um, Paul is addressing the church in Corinth.

He takes three chapters to address uh the gifts of the Spirit, and he chooses to take an entire chapter, chapter 13, and address love.

How the Corinthian church has love for one another.

So why would the Apostle Paul take this entire chapter to address love as he's trying to teach and correct and inform the church on the gifts of the Spirit?

As I was studying, it became apparent that the church at Corinth was pretty jacked up.

They had some really out of place motives and practices.

And at first, as a pastor, I felt pretty good.

I was like, man, we're not we're not too much like that.

This is this is good.

Um, but really in chapter three, we see that it is laced with division and jealousy and conflict.

Chapter five, we read about sexual immorality within the church, a man with his mother.

Chapter six, lawsuits against one another in the church.

Chapter seven, marital strife.

Chapter eight, food being offered to idols.

Chapter 10, other forms of idolatry.

And now chapters 12 through 14, brothers and sisters who've been purchased by Christ are now using these gifts that have been given to them to tear one another apart, to tear each other down, to puff up themselves.

These things that were meant to build one another up, they're actually using to tear each other apart and belittle each other.

I believe this is why Paul has taken an entire chapter, chapter 13, to address the way that the church is to love one another.

If you remember in chapter 12, verse 31, it ended by saying, But earnestly desire the higher gifts, and I will show you a still more excellent way.

And this morning we we are reminded and are we learn of the more excellent way, the way of love.

Love is the litmus of the Spirit's presence in the church.

Love is the litmus of the Spirit's presence in the church.

The church at Corinth was absent of love.

They did not love each other well.

They were divisive, they were hostile towards each other.

And we as a church should be continually asking ourselves: are we a church marked by love?

Are we a church that has deep love for one another, deep affection?

Are we long-suffering with each other?

Are we patient?

Are we slow to anger?

Are we quick to forgive?

Do we bear one another's burdens?

Jesus declared that love would be the distinguishing characteristic of his followers.

John 13, 35 says, all men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another.

So the church, God's people, should be set apart from culture by the way that we have love for one another.

And so I was encouraged by the way that maybe our church doesn't function as the church in Corinth described.

I was later kind of brought back to earth.

And as I reflected, I don't know if we, the church today, are that much different than the church in Corinth.

I wonder if culture would describe our church as a church that is marked with love.

Not just Sacred Mission Church, but the global church.

Would our neighbors say that we are a church marked by love?

Simply need to log into Facebook and find your answer, right?

Are we long-suffering?

Are we quick to judge?

Quick to forgive?

Are we patient?

Are we not that much different than culture?

Quick to judge, quick to tear down, quick to draw lines, not long-suffering, not patient.

The lesson for the church at Corinth is the lesson that we need today, church.

That without love, without love, this conversation of the gifts of the Spirit and their validity today is useless.

Love is the litmus of the Spirit's presence in the church.

If we pursue and practice the gifts of the Spirit absent of love, they are useless.

Absent of meaning and devoid of power.

The beginning of chapter 13, our last sermon in this series began this way.

If I speak in the tongue of angels but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mystery and knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Without love, we gain nothing.

Why is that?

Going along the theme of this temporary and permanent contrast, the gifts are temporary, but love will remain.

The gifts are temporary, but love will remain.

Love never ends.

This contrast between the temporary and permanent.

Love is something that is absolutely essential to the Christian life both now and forevermore.

So much attention in verse 8 has been given to the types of verbs that we see where it says prophecies will pass, tongues will cease, knowledge will pass.

We believe it to be just the way that Paul was using variations in his writings.

Some people would say that the difference between pass and cease has an effective, something external source is making the tongue cease in a different way than knowledge that's going to pass.

And they draw a lot of folks will draw a lot of conclusions based on the type of verb in here.

And we're not going to get into the weeds too much on that this morning.

No matter what significance we draw into those verbs, what we can agree on is that they will one day cease.

They are partial, they will end.

When is that?

As we read on, it's when the perfect comes.

So if I was to summarize verse 8, I would say love must dictate how spirit gifting functions in the church.

Not because the gifts are less valuable, but because they will one day pass away.

But love never ends.

Let us be a church that is marked by love, amen.

Let us grow in our love for one another.

We continue on in verse 9.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

Paul is saying here that our knowledge of things divine is in part.

And our prophecies likewise produce at best partial information.

There are some things that we will not know on this side of eternity, and it's okay.

One of the reasons we are finite human beings who cannot begin to comprehend the Almighty.

Like that song that we just say, who can number the grains of sand?

Who counts the starry hosts, and not one of them is lost?

Job 11:7, as Job is wrestling with God, he says, God's response to him is, Can you find out the deep things of God?

Job 11:7

Can you find out the limit of the Almighty?

It is higher than heaven.

What can you do?

Deeper than Sheol, what can you know?

Its measure is longer than the earth and broader than the sea.

We cannot begin to fathom the ways of the Almighty.

Later on in the book of Job is probably potentially the greatest mic drop of all time.

Starting at verse 4, I'll read God's reply, the Lord's answer to Job.

Were you there when I laid the foundations of the earth, Job?

Tell me if you have understanding.

Who determined its measurements?

Surely you know.

Or who stretched the line upon it?

On what were its bases sunk, or who laid its cornerstone, when the morning stars sank together and all the sons of God shouted for joy?

Or who shut in the sea with doors when it burst out from the womb?

When I made clouds its garment and thick darkness its swaddling band, and prescribed limits for it, and set bars and doors, and said, Thus far shall you come and no further, and here shall your proud waves be strayed.

Have you commanded the morning since your days began, O Job, and caused the dawn to know its place?

That it might take hold of the skirts of the earth and the wicked be shaken out of it.

It is changed like clay under the seal, and its features stand out like a garment.

Have you entered into the springs of the sea or walked in the recesses of the deep?

Have the gates of death been revealed to you?

Or have you seen the gates of deep darkness?

Have you comprehended the expanse of the earth?

Declare if you know all this.

Where is the way to the dwelling of light, and where is the place of darkness that you may take it to its territory, and that you may discern the past to its home?

You know, for you were born then, and the number of your days is great.

We as finite beings cannot begin to comprehend the ways of the Almighty.

We know in part.

We prophecy, we prophesy in part, but there will become a day when that ends.

The second reason I would submit that the gifts, by their very nature, are temporary, is that they will one day end.

The gifts of the Spirit are not in part because they are somehow not what God intended them to be.

But rather, Paul is saying that they are in part because they are temporary.

They were designed to be temporary.

They will one day end.

And when is that?

We read on.

When the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

When the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

This again is the contrast between the temporary and the permanent.

We've already covered the partial, right?

Tongues and knowledge and prophecy.

These gifts will one day cease.

They are partial.

But what about the perfect?

This is extremely important in our discussion as we discover are the gifts valid for the church today?

If the gifts cease when the perfect comes, then it's important to understand what is the perfect?

Who is the perfect?

When does he or she or it come?

And what does it mean for us today?

So, really, there's two main positions of understanding on the perfect.

The first, some would say the perfect is referring to the closing of the canon of Scripture, the completion of the New Testament as we know it today.

Some folks would say that is what Paul is alluding to, Paul is talking about here.

When the perfect comes, when the New Testament is closed, the partial will pass away.

The second position, this is also safely said, the majority position, is that the perfect is the second coming of Christ.

The partial will pass away at the second coming of Christ.

This would be our stance here at Sacred Mission as well.

And we get that from this text, and I hope you see that as we work through it.

The Greek word for perfect in this passage is telos, which means having reached its end or completion.

Telos.

So the question remains: is Paul referencing the end of the closing of the canon or the end when Christ returns again to ransom his bride?

We read on for that answer.

In verse 11, 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.

Paul gives us this analogy of how when he was a child, he acted like a child in both thought and reason.

But when he became a man, he gave up his childish ways.

We can all relate to this, right?

When we were children, we had a much different outlook on life, a much different understanding of life.

Right now, I view a stick in my backyard as something I need to clean up so I don't run it over and doll up my mower blade, right?

Something I need to burn.

It's work.

My children see a stick in the backyard, and it's a sword.

It's a gun.

It's a lightsaber.

It's a whip.

Who knows what?

It's a weapon of some sort, right?

Children, hopefully, as we mature, we don't have the same vantage point in life.

My oldest uh the other day, uh, his name's Caleb, he's seven.

He said that his hands are bored.

Dad, my hands are bored.

And uh my wife had a great idea to give him a hammer.

Now, it was a good idea.

Um, it was well intended.

Maybe you think, why would you give a kid a hammer?

Well, hammers have a purpose, right?

For us men, as we mature, hammers are constructive.

We build things out of them, they have many different uses.

We can tear down drywall, we can pull out nails out of a tire, maybe, we can build things, we can construct things.

But when you hand a hammer to a child, it has a different use.

It's a weapon.

So we heard really quickly, we heard some like thuds coming from the garage.

We go out there and he's just tacking along the drywall with his hammer.

I'm like, oh, this is not good.

So she came up with a bright idea to get a two by four and to write his initials on it and give him a box of nails, and he had to trace his initials with nails.

And so for like two hours, you just hear t in the garage.

It was great.

His hands were no longer bored, they were probably just sore, much like his ears.

Right?

I equate it myself kind of like when I first started smoking meat.

When I was a child, I smoked meat on an electric smoker.

It was terrible.

It was childish.

It was petty.

But when I became a man, when I became a man, I returned that smoker to Costco because they have a great return policy.

And I bought myself a Kamado Joe.

And now I smoke manly meat.

Impressive meat.

Not this week's sauce.

Great, wonderful meat.

That's for Justin.

He's not here.

Paul is saying it's just like that.

Smoking meat on an electric smoker is childish.

Behavior in one age of life is appropriate in that age, and at some point it's no longer appropriate.

If I still walked around with a hammer and started tacking along walls and just beating things, that would not be appropriate use of a hammer.

That would be an appropriate response as a man.

And as good as the Spirit's giftings are, as wonderful as they are, there will become a day when they are no longer appropriate.

They're no longer necessary.

Because we will have Jesus fully.

They are only for the present.

Some cessationists would argue in verse 11 that it's a reference to believers maturing.

That as they were a child, they matured into manhood.

And honestly, if we did not have verse 12 in this passage, I would say it's a very compelling argument.

It seems to me that Paul is talking about a child maturing into manhood in both thought and reason and understanding.

But when we look at the entirety of this scripture in this context, I think we'll be led otherwise.

For verse 12 continues on.

For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face.

Now I know in part, but then I shall fully know, even as I have been fully known.

Face to face, I looked it up in Greek, it means face to face.

There's nothing special about it.

Paul is talking about there will be come a day when we see Jesus, when we see our Lord face to face.

So this statement is almost certainly a reference to the day when either through death or Christ's return, that we will see Jesus face to face.

We will no longer have a need for the gifts, which are temporary manifestations which hold us fast in the already, but not yet, because we will have our Lord face to face.

To me, it doesn't seem that Paul is referencing the closing of the canon or the closing of the New Testament.

It would seem odd for Paul to say, once the scriptures are completed, we would see face to face.

It seems that he's referencing the second coming of Christ.

So going back to verse 11, Paul really is illustrating the difference between the present day and the future that is to come.

There will come a time when the current manifestations and experiences with the Spirit will cease.

John Calvin was so sure of this meaning in this verse that he is quoted as saying, It is stupid of people to make the whole of this discussion apply to the intervening time.

There will come a day when the gifts will seem like childish experiences compared to the full revelation that is to be revealed in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Corinth, interestingly enough, was famous for its making of the finest bronze mirrors of antiquity.

So when I first read this, I thought of a mirror like we have today.

You go to the bathroom, you have a very clear reflection of yourself or whatever's in the mirror.

And this wasn't the case.

And in this writing, it's interesting Paul chooses to use this language.

They would get bronze metal and they would polish it and they would smooth it out and they would make it shine.

And even the finest mirrors in antiquity would produce at best these dim and dark and obscured reflections or images of what was standing in front of them.

And Paul says our knowledge of God presently is like that.

But when the perfect comes, we shall no longer see dimly, but fully, face to face.

We continue on.

Paul goes on in 12b, then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.

Paul seems to suggest here a state of being where his knowledge is similar to God's knowledge for him.

I was talking to the kids about this as well.

It's I can't even begin to fathom having knowledge that's even somewhat close to the knowledge, the intimate knowledge that God, the creator of everything, has on us.

The God who knows the very hairs on our head, who knew us before we were even in our mother's womb.

This text says that we will know God fully, even as we are fully known by him.

Can you imagine knowing God intimately, the creator and sustainer of the universe?

So what is Paul saying in this message?

What is Paul saying in this passage?

Maybe to help bring light, or maybe to help as we determine what the perfect is, maybe if we were to look at, if we replaced perfect with the New Testament, maybe that'll, or perfect with the second coming, if we rewrote that, maybe that helped us understand.

So that's what I did.

If we were talking about the completed canon, a rewriting of this passage might read like this.

Now, before the New Testament is written, we see in a mirror dimly.

But when the New Testament is complete, we shall see face to face.

For now I know in part, but then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

Or if Paul were addressing the second coming of Christ, a rewriting of this passage might seem like this.

Now in the age we see in a mirror dimly, but then when the Lord returns, we shall see face to face.

Now I know in part, but then I shall fully know, even as I have been fully known.

Revelation 22, 4 says that in heaven we shall see God's face.

1 John 3.2 says that when Jesus appears, we shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.

Church, the gifts will cease in glory when we have the giver of gifts face to face for all of eternity.

So if I was to summarize 10 through 12, I would say when Christ returns, the gifts of the Spirit will cease, as they will no longer be necessary.

Christ shall be all in all.

Christ shall be all in all.

We shall see Jesus.

So Paul's charge to the Corinthians is the same to us, church.

The gifts are not our final existence, but rather the loving presence of our God, which shall never end.

The gifts of the Spirit will be out of place when the perfect comes, because we will no longer need temporary manifestations, but we will have his presence fully.

We will no longer need partial revelations.

We will have his presence fully.

Amen.

We cannot overplay the riches that awaits us as the saints.

Eternal bliss, loving presence which never ends between Jesus and his bride, one that even Disney cannot recreate.

Unconditional love that never ends.

Song of Solomon 8.7 says, Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.

The one unconquerable thing is love.

The world cannot change it.

It tried when it put Jesus on the cross.

External circumstances cannot change it.

It has been tested.

History cannot change it, it is not bound by time, for it never ends.

And even death cannot take it from us because love murdered death.

Love defeated death at the cross.

And this is the good news this morning, church.

It's big news.

It's big news because you and I both have a sin and a death problem.

Whether you like it or not, our days are numbered.

We are one day closer to death today than we were yesterday.

Romans 5 12 says, Therefore, just as sin came into the world through one man, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men because all sinned.

There is not a person in this room who has not sinned.

And there's not a person in this room who can escape death.

We will all one day die.

You can fact check it, it's gonna happen.

It might be COVID, it might be cancer, it might be dying in your sleep at the ripe age of 85.

One day we will die.

And without the matchless love of Jesus, all of our stories would end like this: death, despair, sorrow, weeping, and eternal separation from God as his wrath is poured out against all ungodliness.

But thanks be to God that chapter 5 of Romans doesn't stop there.

We read on in verses 18 through 21 of Romans 5, therefore, as one trespass led to condemnation for all men, so one act of righteousness leads to justification and life for all men.

For as by one man's disobedience the many were made sinners, so by the one man's obedience the many will be made righteous.

So that as sin reigned in death, grace also might reign through righteousness, leading to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

This is our hope this morning, church, that grace might reign through Jesus' righteousness, which would lead to eternal life for those who are found in Him.

You and I cannot and will not be able to save ourselves from our own self.

We are sinful.

And God is not surprised by our sin.

Romans goes on to talk about it.

Even while we are dead and in our sin and trespasses, Christ died for us.

Christ died for the ungodly.

Christ is not surprised that you and I sinned.

Christ was not waiting for us to fix ourselves up, to make us more presentable.

No, Christ came.

And he lived a perfect, sinless life, the one that you and I could never live.

And he died the death that you and I deserved because of sin.

In exchange, he gives us his righteousness and eternal life.

Oh, what grace.

Christ Jesus came to die for the ungodly.

When God the Spirit raised Jesus from the grave, death itself was defeated.

And this is our gospel conviction.

At the cross, the endless love of God is revealed by the sacrificial death, burial, and resurrection of our Savior Jesus Christ.

It was love that God would send his son.

John 3.16, for God so loved the world that he gave his only son.

And it was love that drove Jesus to the cross.

John 10, 18, Jesus says, No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down on my own accord.

And John 15, 13 says, Greater love has no one than this, that someone laid down his life for his friends.

It is out of great and deep and matchless and infinite love that we the church, by the power of the Spirit, will be kept until that day when we see our Savior face to face in glory.

And this love, the perfect love of God the Father through Jesus Christ our Lord, will never come to an end.

As for the gifts, they will cease.

These wonderful manifestations and experiences with God the Spirit, they will one day cease because we will have God fully face to face, knowing Him and being known by Him.

So what does this mean for us today, church?

What does this mean for us?

Number one, we need to be a church that pursues love by living a Jesus first and foremost lifestyle.

Pursue love by living a Jesus first and foremost lifestyle.

If love is to be love, it has to come from outside of us.

If love has to be love, it has to be rooted in the love that was first shown to us by Jesus Christ.

You and I know this.

Think of the person that you love the most.

Maybe it's your spouse.

I know that I failed to love my spouse perfectly.

I know that I'm not long-suffering, I'm not patient, I'm not slow to anger.

Maybe your children.

We fail to love our children perfectly.

Our love ends.

Maybe it's a brother and sister in Christ that you disagree with.

Do we always disagree and love?

How difficult is it to love others when it really costs us something?

When we have to place them in front of our own desires, in front of our own ideas, our own things, our own possessions.

If love is to be love, it has to come from outside of us.

So we look to God.

Who in love is patient with the sinner.

So that we now can be patient and long-suffering and slow to anger with each other.

We look to God who lavishly gives kindness to us.

So we as a church can lavishly extend kindness to each other.

We look to God who in love bears our burdens.

Jesus literally took our sin debt and placed it on his shoulders and nailed it to the cross so that we no longer bear it.

And we now can bear one another's burdens.

We can carry each other's loads because Christ first carried ours.

In love, God endures what we could have never endured, so that we can be long-suffering with each other.

And through death, God redefined love's meaning.

This infinite, matchless, marvelous, eternal love and grace.

Church, if we are to love one another, it first has to start with God and what he has done in and through Jesus as we live empowered by his Holy Spirit.

So number one, we need to pursue love by living a Jesus first and foremost lifestyle.

The second way we can respond to this is to welcome the gifts of the Holy Spirit in your life.

As we read, one day the gifts will cease.

They're temporary, they're partial, they're in part.

But when the perfect comes, they will end.

And it's our understanding that that time has not yet come.

1 Thessalonians 5.19 has a simple command: do not quench the spirit.

Do not quench the spirit.

We need to welcome the gifts.

Individually.

One way we can do that is to consider the gifts that God has given you.

Consider the unique giftings that God has equipped you to build up the church.

1 Corinthians 12, 7 started out with, for each has been given a gift for the common good of the church.

We've all been given a gift.

How do we use that to build one another up?

What if you feel like you don't have any gifts at all?

Like you feel like, man, I really don't have any giftings.

Pray.

Ask God to reveal how He has uniquely gifted you.

Ask someone that you trust or love or someone who knows you intimately.

What giftings do I have?

There's a list of giftings in chapter 12.

We discussed some of them.

But search the scriptures and ask, what giftings do we have?

Corporately as a church, how can we welcome the gifts of the Spirit?

I think we need to seek to build one another up with the gifts and not selves.

How many churches, how many empires have we seen of recent completely come crashing down from men that have sought to build up their own kingdom, sought to build up this name for themselves?

God will not share his glory with another.

These gifts were given not to build ourselves up, but to build each other up.

Another way, as a church, we can welcome the gifts is that we can extend grace to those who are seeking to exercise the gifts in their lives.

Let us be a church that is patient and long-suffering, that is ready to extend grace.

It's interesting, every other gift in the New Testament, really, except for the revelatory gifts, seem to get a bunch of grace as people practice and exercise them.

How many folks in this room would say that they've sat underneath a poor teaching at some point, a poor sermon?

Yeah, maybe you're saying it right now, right?

Like this, this guy does not have the gift.

He just needs to wrap things up, right?

Yeah, what did you do?

You didn't walk out.

I haven't seen that many people walk out today, right?

You don't walk out.

But you sit there and you pray for that person.

And you're long suffering.

Hopefully you pray to yourself and not out loud.

That'll get weird, right?

But you pray for them.

What about the gift of hospitality?

Who has gone to someone's house for a dinner and it was terrible?

Right?

It just was didn't hit the mark.

That person was trying to be loving, trying to encourage you, and it just turned out like fried spam.

I mean, bad.

I mean, it's probably an electric smoker, albeit.

But yeah, you don't walk out.

You're not rude, you're not divisive in your response.

About the gift of evangelism.

Who in this room has tried to tell a brother, a co-worker, a family member, someone you love about Jesus, and it just does not come out right.

You're like, well, this guy, he was fully God, but he's also fully man at the same time, and he left heaven and came here, and all of a sudden it sounds like you're giving him directions to Walmart or something.

I mean, like, you don't even you don't know how you got over here when you started here, right?

We don't stop evangelizing, we practice the gift.

We exercise it.

We hopefully mature in the giftings.

We don't throw in the towel.

Church, the gifts take practice, and let us be a church that extends grace as those around us are seeking to, in accordance with scripture, exercise them, seeking to build one another up and not self.

What about for those in this room who just disagree with this teaching?

Man, I just don't see it.

I see what you're saying, I just disagree.

It's okay.

I'd ask you to search the scriptures for truth.

I'd ask you to not let past experience, past practice, or personal preference guide your understanding.

At this church, we hold scripture as our highest authority.

And so when we are determining something, we allow scripture to be compared with scripture to develop our understanding of God's ways.

You know, this one I can speak to.

In senior high, um, I was a part of a church that had some pretty devastating fallout, went from multiple thousand people to, I don't even think, a few hundred in a short matter of time, over this very topic.

How divisive, how tearing down it was.

I can remember uh being called uh at we were at senior high, and me and Holly were uh, I think dating at this time, and we went over to our youth pastor's house, and he was going to uh baptize us in the Holy Spirit, and we were going to start speaking in tongues, right?

And so we go into his living room or his apartment, it was an apartment actually, and it's like dimmed lights, like ambient music in the background.

I'm like, what is going on here?

And so we prayed, and uh he said, All right, everyone start speaking in tongues.

And I'm not doing anything, I'm just like, what is going on here?

Like these people are rambling.

There's probably 10 of us.

I mean, 15, 16-year-olds, I can't remember how old I was then.

And uh I'm like, man, I I don't think anything's happening here.

I nope, I don't get it.

He's like, you just literally, his words were you just need to start mumbling.

That's speaking in tongues.

I'm like, no, but that experience left me jaded.

It really marred my understanding for many years.

It really made me, uh, I don't know about these gifts of spirit, because if that's what it is, that was not a manifestation of the spirit.

That was bull.

And I want nothing a part of it, nothing to do with it.

Just because we might have had a bad experience or past practice doesn't mean that should determine our understanding of what is to be revealed in scripture.

And so we as a church should be using scripture to determine our understanding.

We as a church should be quick to extend grace.

You know, I for years I was kind of disgruntled against that pastor and his wife for leading us astray, I felt like.

I was kind of convicted this week as I was preparing that.

I mean, they were they really were trying to walk out what they saw in Scripture.

I don't think it was malicious.

They didn't gain anything from what they were trying to do.

I think it came from good motives, but it it wasn't in accordance with scripture.

And in the coming weeks, we're gonna be working through what does prophecy look like?

What does knowledge look like?

What how do they play out practically?

And so for this time, I'd ask that you would pray.

If you're on the fence or you just don't believe this, just pray.

Ask God the Spirit to give you wisdom, to speak through you, to speak through his word.

Don't process this alone.

Process in community.

Stick around, hear the rest of the passages that we'll be working through through chapter 14, and ask God to speak through the reading and the teaching of his word.

That he would open your eyes to what is right.

If you disagree with this teaching, it's okay.

We started out saying this is a distinctive, this is an open-handed issue.

Jesus loves you wherever you fall on this spectrum.

It's not a salvation-altering theology.

There are many dear brothers and sisters who land on different ends of the playing field in this discussion.

We want you to know, as one of your pastors here at Sacred Mission, that as we address these topics, as they come up throughout Scripture, that this is the stance that we'll be teaching from.

This is our understanding of the gifts, that they are valid for today, that they are given for the edification, the building up of the church and the present.

That they will one day cease, they will one day end, but that day has not yet come.

And it will come when the perfect comes, when Jesus Christ returns in glory.

Amen.

This leads us to our gospel vision.

In Christ, heaven gave of its very best.

And the gifts of the Spirit are temporary glimpses into and manifestations of what will one day be ours in glory.

Knowing God fully and being known fully by God.

Seeing him face to face.

God's love is perfected in the greatest gift, Jesus Christ, whose death, burial, and resurrection has secured for the saints an inheritance that is imperishable, undefiled, unfading, and kept in heaven for us.

An inheritance that's ready to be revealed at the last time when we shall see our Savior face to face in glory.

Face to face with the Almighty, the King of the universe.

Let us pray.