The Greatest of These | Ps Jon Eaton

Hey, welcome to the City Point Church podcast.

Thanks for joining us. Every day is an opportunity to

take hold of. So we hope this message inspires

you and build your faith that it helps you have more of a God

perspective for your day. Enjoy.

Bless. You guys have a seat.

Wonderful. I just love how excited you guys

get whenever you hear the word of God is going to be preached.

It does. It brings a smile to my face.

It's like, let's stand and celebrate the word of God.

And I just love how enthusiastic you all are.

Please never, ever lose that. Yeah.

Because the more you get to know God, the more you fall in love

with him, the more you realize it's not just about Amazing

Grace with God. It's like amazing everything.

I'm pretty sure for the first gazillion years been in glory,

there's some people, you know, they're the party people.

They're going to be worshiping, celebrating.

I'm I'm going to be standing there pretty much dumb struck

and just go for a very long time.

Someone's going to take me on the shoulder and go.

It's OK John, just move on. We are in a season of faith,

love and hope. The preach for today is called

the greatest of these. That's what I'm called the

greatest of these because that verse, when I was a child, that

verse really confused me. It's First Corinthians 1313,

which I'm sure for those who've been around for a while would

have heard multiple times, but I want to go through it now.

First Corinthians 1313 says, and now abide.

Faith, hope, love, these three, OK?

Abide means, you know, submerge yourself in it, live in it,

abide, faith, hope, love these three, but the greatest of these

is love agape. Love agape love is a selfless

love. It is a pouring out kind of

love. It's one of those loves that you

really kind of get more of a taste for as you become like a

parent or a grandparent and you just want to pour yourself out

for this object that will probably never do anything for

you. That particular the day you're

like, I gave you everything today.

Where's my stuff? Doesn't happen.

Yeah, Bubba. Hello, darling.

Like that. Well, that that was for me.

Thank you, darling. OK, so.

But this verse used to really confuse me when I was a child

because I thought faith, surely faith is the greatest of these.

Surely. Remember the old days when

people were told that salvation is by faith alone because they

never read the book of James? And so that was my childhood.

I'm like, well, you know, faith has to be faith.

So it can't be love has to be faith.

But as we read the Word of God, we find out that actually grace

is a gift. It's just the generous,

beautiful nature of God. It is that love.

It's that giving. It's the I want to extend and

give grace. One of the most beautiful verses

is an Acts 1511. It's on the screen.

But this is the apostles and this is Paul.

And they're all speaking to each other.

And they said we believe in James.

We believe it is through the grace of our Lord Jesus that we

are saved. It's through his grace that we

are saved. He doesn't even mention the word

faith here. It's a beautiful gift.

It's the nature of God to want to give grace.

And then of course, we read in Ephesians 28 to 9:00 that this

happens through faith. But interestingly, grace also

occurs through repentance. It even says that repentance

leads to salvation in 2nd Corinthians 710.

And then as we read, it is also through the washing and the

rebirth and the renewal of the Holy Spirit.

And you read that in Titus chapter 3.

Titus 3 · chapter mention

So faith is important, but it's only one of many, many important

things. And of course there's hope, but

hope in our modern understanding can sound an awful lot like a

pipe dream. For those who don't know what a

pipe dream is, it actually is a term that started from the opium

dens, right? So what would happen is

especially 18th and 19th century, early 20th century,

there was a thing about, you know, opium, right?

And that would get into these dans and they would be smoking

away and it would fill the room with opium, which is basically a

drug. And it fills the room with

smoke. And people would have these

wonderful dreams and visions. And they were doing it not just

because they were addicted to drugs.

It was one of the painkillers back then.

So people would smoking opium for pain relief, then they were

getting wildly addicted to it, and then they'd end up in these

dens all together doing it. But that's where the term pipe

dream come from. Because as soon as the smoke

went away, so did the dream and the vision and the enthusiasm.

And we tend to see hope that way as well.

So in today's understanding, things like faith and hope are

intangible. They're unreal.

You know, you'll often hear people say, you know, I believe

in science, not faith, because faith is imaginary.

But that's not what faith and hope are.

In the Bible, the original foundation of faith and hope is

actually tangible. And they both point to love,

which is why the greatest, the greatest of these is love.

So .1 for those who are point takers, faith anchors us, which

is bizarre because an anchor is something that has to be true

and real. Hey, you know, you can't just

anchor yourself to something that's imaginary, you know,

imagine, like if you know, trying to anchor or hold on to

something that's not real. So how does faith anchor us if

it's not real? And I guess the best way for me

to explain this is that faith and belief are different in

their structure. So for example, I believe that

when I walked up here on the platform that it would support

my weight and it would be fine. You know, you can jump up and

down and it won't collapse under me, but I have faith that the

words that I'm speaking will change your life and your heart

through the power of the Holy Spirit, and that hopefully it

will produce a walk that's even closer to God.

That's faith. Now, who's to say that my belief

in the platform is more real than my faith in the

transformation of your life of the Holy Spirit?

Like, who's to say which is more real?

And people like. Oh, yeah.

But John, you can touch the platform.

Yes, but my faith touches heaven.

I don't see heaven, John. OK, but you know, I don't see

gravity either. I see how it affects everything

around me. If I drop the mic, bam.

But I don't see gravity. Anyone here seen the gravity

lately? Can you bring it up here?

Do you believe in gravity? Oh, that's weird.

Hey, something you see or can't see?

What about wind? Feel like I see wind?

No, you don't. What you see is how it affects

things around you. So, you know, one of my favorite

things is actually to sit on the patio.

I really do like the trees in the background when it's windy

because they sway slowly. Have you seen that?

It's like lovely. Now I don't sit there and freak

out and go, it's magic. They're moving by themselves

because I don't see wind, but I know it's there and it's real.

And just because you can't see something or even touch

something doesn't mean it's not real.

Good example is your thoughts. Anyone here touch somebody's

thought lately? No.

OK, But we're pretty sure thoughts are real.

Yeah, so just because you can't see or physically touch

something also doesn't mean it's not true.

In Romans 1 chapter 17 and in Galatians 311, Paul quotes an

ancient prophet by the name of Habakkuk.

All right, so Habakkuk 2 verse 4, it says the just shall live

Habakkuk 2:4

by faith. The Hebrew word there is MNR or

MNR. All right.

So lots of different ways to explain that.

But Paul saw the word MNR as a way live faith.

All right. But the bizarre thing about the

word MNR is it's really closely related to the word Amit.

Amit means truth, not some fanciful weird like magical

thing called faith. No, it's very, very closely

related to the word truth. And in fact, faith and truth are

interchangeable. In Deuteronomy 32 verse 4, this

Deuteronomy 32:4

is what it says. It says he is the rock talking

of God. His work is perfect for all his

ways of judgement. Give this a God of a MENA, a God

of truth and without iniquity, just and right He is.

You could only say that because the words a MENA that He is a

God of faith. If faith and truth are

interchangeable. So if faith is true, doesn't

that make it real? So you think me standing on the

platform is the truth because you can see it.

But technically, biblically standing in the Kingdom of

heaven is even more real than the things that are around me

because it's truth, which is why in Hebrews 11 verse one very

popular verse now faith is this substance of things hoped for,

the evidence of things not seen. The thing is that word

substance, You've got to look it up.

This is it's OK in Hebrew, it's hopistas all right?

Hopistas. It is 99% of the time it gets

translated as the word confidence.

In fact, this is verse in Hebrews 11, verse one.

It's the only time that it gets translated as the word

substance. Now, why did good old King James

decided for that one verse change it from confidence to

substance? It's because context.

Also, hooperstasis means like foundation.

It means something that's so real.

You can you can actually put weight on it.

It holds things up. You'll find hooperstasis.

It can be translated as a person.

If that person's holding you up, it's a real thing.

It's not just an airy fairy pipe dream.

It's a real thing. Some that's foundational.

So King James is like, well, you know, we can't just do the word

confidence here. We're going to have to explain

that it's something so tangible that faith is the substance, the

upholding of things hoped for, the evidence, the truth of

things not seen. So what about hope then?

All right, .2 hope sustains us so this is the things that are

hoped for, not a pipe dream, not you know, the smoke goes away

and well that was nice to hope for that.

We have really misunderstood the word hope because you know

people say, oh you man, their hopes were dashed.

I'm like that actually doesn't make sense when you understand

what the word hope is the the word for hope in Hebrew is

Tikva. Now Tikva is a very Jewish and

historical if you know the national anthem of Israel, it's

called the Hatikva. Hatikva means the hope, right?

So even the national anthem is based around this word hope.

But the literal translation of Tikva is rope chord.

It's not like a like smoke. It's a tangible thing that you

hold on to. Rock climbers would hold on to a

Tikva in in Joshua chapter 2, verses 18 to 21, there's an

Joshua 2:18–21

event that occurs where Joshua sends spies into this place

called Jericho, and they nearly get caught.

And there's this woman there, her name's Rehab.

And she hides them. And they're like, sweet, thank

you for hiding us. How can we repay you?

So basically the whole deal is they said if you hang out your

window a Scarlett Tikva people say the scarlet rope, scarlet

cord, whatever, but the words Tikva A scarlet rope.

If you throw out your the scarlet rope, then you'll be

saved. Says this in Joshua 2 verse 21.

Joshua 2:21

Then she said this is rahed. She said according to your

words, so be it. And she sent them away and they

departed and she bound the scarlet Tikvath cord in the

window, tangible, not just smoke.

They could see it now. So she put this scarlet coloured

tikvah hope, a scarlet hope out the window.

So it was hope that physically led to her salvation.

Now get this, this is real cool part, right?

So that Scarlett Tikvah, that Scarlett rope, that Scarlet hope

wasn't just about a pretty rope that she put in a window

biblically, that scarlet rope weaved its way all the way

through her descendants, all the way to Jesus, because she was

the great, great, great, great. You've got to do it 40 times.

I'm not going to do it right, but she's the great, great,

great times 40 grandmother of Jesus.

So that that rope, it wasn't just a symbol, it ended up being

the bloodline tangible, tangible.

In Romans 15 verse 13, it says, now may the God of hope fill you

Romans 15:13

with all joy. Never is God the God of like

imaginary stuff. Then why would it be called the

God of hope if it wasn't real? Now, may the God of hope fill

you with all joy and peace in believing that you may abound in

hope. Not imaginary stuff, but abound

in hope by the power of the Holy Spirit.

I like to say this. I like to say God is the God of

hope. Ropes.

Is it? OK?

How fun of you read this. I want you to.

I want you to say that for me, it'd be great.

All right. May I may be the God of a hope

rope because you've heard of Nope ropes, right?

You know, snakes, snakes and Nope ropes, right?

But God is the hope group. So how does this attach?

Then you think about this. OK, So remember, remember, faith

is what anchors us. Yeah.

So anchored toward right? So if you can imagine from a

rock climbers perspective, you've got your hope rope, but

you have to attach yourself to it.

And how do you do that? Well, you get those D clips and

you click it on so that if you fall, you're caught.

And when you're caught, you've been saved.

So faith and hope, tangibly working together so that you and

me can be saved. Because all of these things

point to love. Yeah, well done.

Say .3 it is the greatest is love again, First Corinthians

1313 as a reminder, this is now abide faith, hope, love, these

three, but the greatest of these is love because it actually all

starts with love, not the way that the world explains love at

all. You know, love is love or

really, why is it the same people that say love is love?

The same people say, well, that 60 year old shouldn't have

married that 30 year old. It's like weird, hey, how they

still think love is defined by their own opinions.

So there is no such thing as love as love except for God's

love, Biblical love. Everything else is very in

Greek. If you ever look at the

different types of love, there's technically 8.

Some people say there's nine, some people 7, but there's 8 of

them and only one of them is like full of it's agape love

that that selfless pouring out love.

Everything else is like feelings or metaphors in many ways.

For example, Eros is very sexual.

You know, filio is what you would feel for your family and

friends. Lots of different types of love,

but there's only one that's the highest and greatest love, which

is the one that we talked about when it comes to God, which is

agape love. All right, because everything

else is an expression, but there's only one love of and

biblical love is different, very different.

In one John 48 and verse 8 and verse 16, it says that God is

love. God is agape.

It doesn't say Eros, it doesn't say filia.

It says God is agape, not that God.

It doesn't say God is loving. He is, but it sets a precedent

where it says no, God is love. It's like water is wet.

You can't divide it. It's like God is love.

And because God is love, he gets to define what love is.

You know, I've heard Rachel say this and other people for from

the platform. It's like God isn't what you

think he is. God is exactly what he says he

is, right? Yeah.

So when God says I'm love, he's saying I also know what that

means. If you're a builder of the

house, you get to choose how to build the house.

You get to choose its shape and how it's put together.

So God designed love. So he gets to determine what

love is, how you feel, whether it's sexually, enthusiastically

it. It's related to love in some

ways, but it's not the fullness of biblical love.

It's like, I love coffee. Yeah.

You know, you're not going to see that in the Bible.

Should be, you know, what is it? It's like Hebrews, right?

Yeah. And you're going to say that

anyway, if you, if you look, get a chance to look through

Scripture, the first time you see the word love in the Bible

is like revolutionary. I hope you get this in your

heart. OK, so it's like chapters and

chapters. And you'd think you'd see the

word love, which in Hebrews Ahava, but you'd think you'd see

it early in the Bible. It's not actually.

It takes chapters after chapters after chapters.

But the very first time you see the word love, it's about a

beloved son. Being offered as a sacrifice on

a mountain that we now know is in Jerusalem.

Now some of you like, wait, I've heard that story before.

That's in the New Testament. No, the very first time we ever

see the word love is the pre, the foreshadow of what Jesus is

going to do In Genesis 22, verse 2, it's about Isaac and Abraham.

Genesis 22:2

It's the first time and it says this is what it says.

It says this is God speaking to Isaac, to Abraham about Isaac,

and God says to Abraham, then he said, take now your son, your

only son, Isaac, whom you love. First time you ever see it.

You know why? Because God's like the first

time you ever need to know about the word love is so that you

identify that this is what I'm going to do for you.

It's not feelings based. It's this is my sacrifice.

This is why you go back and you find where's the first time I

see a word because that's its original definite meaning and

its original purpose. So love, the very first time you

see the word love in the Bible is always about what God wants

to do for you. So he said, take your son, your

only son whom you love, and go to the land of Moriah, offer him

there as a burnt offering on one of the mountains, which I should

tell you, just an amazing name. It's really weird that the very

first explanation of love is the story of the cross.

Moving on. So the Super old King James

Version, right, of getting back to First Corinthians 1313.

This is in the English versions that we have now, then we we've

already read it twice, but it says and now abide faith, hope,

love. OK.

In in the very early King James version, they didn't translate

it as the word love. Are you aware of that?

Yeah. Translated as the word charity.

This is now abide, faith, hope, charity, giving these three.

But the greatest of these is charity.

It's like, why? Because you can't separate love,

proper love, agape love, a pouring out love.

You can't separate it from giving.

Giving is actually directly read a love.

I've got some Hebrew up in there.

Have you got a picture of the Hebrew things?

Sweet. OK, sure.

Great. So this is what the word give is

in Hebrew 1/2 right? And it's behold how generous

generosity is the strength of the house.

That's like if you have a look at the pictogram.

OK, so alef means God, but also means strength.

The very next one. Hey, it means to to see, behold

and abate means house, so you can't actually put it in as a

sentence. And yes, behold, how generosity

is the strength of the house. Why?

Because love is the strength of a house.

All right, but here's the crazy part.

Let's get to the next one. This is the word love, ahava.

It's the same word, right? The only difference being the

letter hey, at the very end. I mean beginner.

Why? Because it's so important to

behold it twice. And you'll notice that as I just

said moments ago, you can't have biblical love unless you have

give. You just can't separate the 2

from the very beginning. It's always been about God and

His love for us, you know, and it's from this love that begets

salvation and that God gives faith.

And you know, something tangibly hold on, which is hope.

In Ephesians 28 it says for by grace you have been saved

through faith, and that not of yourselves.

It is a gift of God because God gives.

He's a God of love. He can't help himself.

John 316 For God so loved the world that he gave.

He can't help himself. He is not just loving.

Remember his love, which means he gives.

They love the world they gave. His only begotten Son, that

whoever believes in him should not perish.

But I've everlasting life and I love this one.

John 4/19. This is so accurate.

It says we love him because he first loved US.

He first loved us. Anything we've ever done back

for him, anything we ever give back to him, it is simply

reciprocal. It is just us going, you know

something? Thank you.

Just give this back to you. I mean, you gave everything.

Remember, Amazing Grace, amazing everything.

So what can I give back to you? What can I give back to you?

God. Because the creation of the

universe and humans began in love.

Musicians, you can come up now. Sorry, I should advise you to

come up a little bit earlier. Oh, there we have thrown their

way. How good is that?

Well, looking nice team. Brilliant.

You can also come out from hiding.

OK, Glory to God, I really love this church.

It's actually really great to be home as some of you know, I

travel a lot and you know, occasionally I get to go to

other churches and just, you know, I happen to be there on a

weekend or sit and I'll be like, this is good.

Love the presence of God here. But gosh, I love my church, you

know? Amen.

Anyway, so we loved him because he first loved us.

Revelations 13 says that Christ the Lamb was crucified from the

foundation of the world. His love for us extends way past

the eternal parameters. I was having chat to someone

recently actually because I was explaining how we misunderstand

the word eternal God. The word eternal God does not

mean that he lives for a long time.

The word eternal God means he lives every moment in eternity

simultaneously right now, which means for every moment for all

time. He sees his Son being crucified

brutally to save us. Kind of about you.

But if I had to live with that nightmare forever, but I would

probably just give up on you. I'm like, Nope, I'm not sure

this is worth it. But it says that he sees the

sacrifice of his son as a sweet smelling aroma because even in

eternity, he thinks you're worth it from the foundation of the

world. He's loved you in Matthew 25

Matthew 25:34

verse 34, and I'll finish with this, it says this is this is

beautiful. It says then the king will say

to those on his right hand, come you blessed are my father,

inherit the Kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the

world. You know, he wasn't just talking

about his sacrifice that occurred from the foundation of

the world. He was planning your inheritance

from before you. You could even think that you

ever existed. We're talking gazillions,

gazillions, gazillions of years ago.

He saw you and thought I've got an inheritance for you.

And he's just been waiting for it.

I love it. How you doing, Sir?

But how do we start our journey? Let's go there.

Because if God first loved us, that's why we love him.

How do we begin that journey? We remember like this way love

and giving simultaneous. You, you can't, you can't have

biblical love, original love, true love without an emptying.

So what's that got to do with us?

Then we'll see. God emptied himself from the

very foundation of the world. What's your part to now give

yourself back to Him? That's all he's ever wanted.

That's all He's ever wanted. It's all like I've said this

before from the platform. I am convinced that God's

obsessed with us like and that must maniac away with all due

respect, because he's been thinking about you before you

even knew he existed. And isn't it right then come on,

I'm just going to be a bit challenging then isn't it right

then that we should give ourselves back to him?

I don't know. It might be your first time

here. We've been here 1000 times.

But just like Justine was saying earlier, in fact, I was I was

thinking about it is finished earlier today before I knew you

were going to do that message. And I'm just like, isn't that

beautiful though? The plan of God to finish it all

this up and why did he go through the cross and

everything? It's so we can have an

inheritance with him, right? So surely, surely we, he

deserves for us to give ourselves back to him.

So if it was, if this is your first time or we've been here

1000 times, let's do it daily. That's what Justin was saying.

It's not just about a A1 moment. It's not just that, oh, it is

finished, great, cool, let's give our life.

So just move on now. How about we make a decision to

give ourselves back to God on a daily, momentarily, hourly,

minute by minute moment. And that's not, doesn't mean

you're going to be perfect, but it's so good to realign yourself

back. That's actually what the word

repentance means for the word, for those who knew.

I don't know if you've heard this, but the word teshuva, OK.

It gets translated as the word repentance, Repent.

All right. And I've heard lots of people

say, Oh yeah, teshuva, it means to turn away from sin.

It's 180° turn, all these other pretty cool things that are

somewhat true, but teshuva actually means to turn towards

something. Yeah.

It's not. It's not just a, oh, I'm going

to going to stop doing that bad stuff.

I mean, like, you know, drug addicts when they get out or

Alcoholics when they get out of that whole mess, right?

They do that to clean their lives up.

They do have to clean their lives up, but that's not

repentance. That's just stopping the bad

stuff. So repentance has to be

directional. It has to be facing towards

something. So when people say do you live a

repentant life, like every moment, I think thank you God,

then yes, that's what a repentant life is.

It's not just feeling bad about things that you've done or yeah,

I'm pretty perfect today. That's not a repentant life.

That's just good stuff. Repentant life is, are we facing

God? Are we coming back to him?

Are we in a love relationship with God where we give back to

him? Let's pray.

If everyone, if you don't mind, just close your eyes, bow your

head. Just want to give people an

opportunity. If you're thinking you know

something could be your first time or yes, I just want again a

declaration that of God. I just I just give myself back

to you. If that's you just want to put

your hand up.