In his sermon 'The Greatest Is Love,' Scott Brown explores 1 Corinthians 13, emphasizing the supreme importance of love over all spiritual gifts and attributes. Brown explains that the purpose of history and the Bible is to demonstrate God's love, culminating in the redemption of sinners through Jesus Christ. He illustrates that while prophecies, tongues, and knowledge will fade, love is eternal and essential for all relationships. Brown stresses that love is the underpinning of true Christian living, surpassing even faith and hope, which are not needed in heaven. He highlights love's permanence and superiority through Paul's four illustrations, encouraging believers to focus on love as the essence of their faith. The sermon concludes by urging the congregation to embody love in all actions, reflecting God's love, which knows and embraces us fully.

If you would please remain standing as the scripture text from 1st Corinthians 13 is read in our hearing before the preaching of the word, 1st Corinthians 13. Love never fails, but whether there are prophecies, they will fail. Whether there are tongues, they will cease. Whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. For we know in part, and we prophesy in part, but when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

When I was a child, I spoke as a child. I understood as a child, and I thought as a child. But when I became a man, I put away childish things. For now we see in a mirror dimly but then face to face now I know in part but then I shall know just as I also am known and now abide faith hope and love these three but the greatest of these is love. Well today we conclude what has been a four-part message on 1 Corinthians 13 and while our time in 1 Corinthians 13 is ending today, We hope our experience with it is not.

The whole story of the Bible, the whole of history really is summed up in the words of John 15, 9, that, as the Father has loved me, so I have loved you. The whole purpose of history is to be a demonstration of love, of the love of God. In fact, the centerpiece of history is a father's love for his Son and how God sent his Son into the world to speak to sinners, to draw them to himself, to show them his power, his beauty, his love, his miraculous goodness, and to redeem sinners, to convict them of sin. God sends his Son into the world and then he sends his Spirit into the world to convict the world of sin and righteousness and judgment in order to redeem sinners. This is the whole purpose of history is to redeem sinners and he does it through the power of the love of God and how God comes into the world to reveal the wrath of God is against the sins of man.

And man's only hope is to seek refuge in the shelter of the blood of Jesus Christ and in him alone, so that whoever would believe in him would not perish as a result of that wrath, but that they would have eternal life and that they would trust him and him alone for the cleansing of their sins and he would actually cleanse them. He would actually put their sins as far as the east is from the west and bury them in the bottom of the ocean. And this really is the whole purpose of history is to demonstrate this one thing of the love of God. So in 1st Corinthians 13, of course, the focus, you know, is the love of God. And what we've learned so far in 1 Corinthians 13 is that the purpose of everything on earth is love, and that nothing matters without love, that nothing lasts without love, that nothing is beautiful without love.

One theologian called the love of the Father for his Son and the love of his Son toward his sinning, redeemed saints as a waterfall of love. As the Father loves the Son, then the Son loves his brethren, and then his brethren love one another. That's this cascading waterfall of the love of God that has been unleashed in the world. And then you find the imagery continuing on throughout all kinds of different relationships where a husband loves his wife like Christ Loved the church that's part of that waterfall of love that comes from the father Then a father an earthly father loves his son he becomes like God the Father who says, this is my beloved son in whom I'm well pleased. Every son needs to hear his father say that, that I delight in you.

And then you have the love of daughters toward their fathers and fathers toward their daughters as a result of the outpouring of the Holy Spirit because Malachi prophesied that when the gospel would be unleashed that it would cause fathers to turn their hearts to their children and children's hearts would be turned toward their parents. This is part of that whole cascading waterfall of love that just continues to flow in the world and it's exemplified in the family and it's also exemplified in the church of the Lord Jesus Christ. And so as God is the head of Christ and Christ is the head of man and the man is the head of woman. So there is love in the world, and this is the world of love that God has created, and this is the world of love that Paul is talking to the Corinthian church about. You know, it's too easy to forget love as the basis for everything.

In the busyness of life, how easy is it to forget why you're doing what you're doing? In the press of worldliness, How easy is it? In the press of selfishness. How easy is it? Fear and all the different things that press upon us.

How easy is it for us to forget? What is the most important thing in the world, the basis for everything that God desires to do in the world? What does it mean to be involved in something that matters? Everybody wants to do something that lasts. Everybody wants to do something real, something powerful, something significant, and we often forget how that happens.

It doesn't happen through position, it doesn't happen through giftedness, it doesn't happen through accomplishments, it doesn't happen through any of that, so says the Apostle Paul. It only happens through love. And So when the apostle says love never fails, he's driving at that. When he was speaking in the first three verses of chapter 13 where he says, without love you ain't nothing and it profits you nothing. Emphasis on nothing in the first three verses.

That's Paul's whole message in this chapter. And so we find really the trail, the pathway in everything that we do. And the only thing that makes it mean anything at all and that is love. You know a couple years ago I was invited to go to a conference and something really strange and startling occurred to me at that conference. It was in Texas.

The title of the conference was Love. I went there to speak and I prepared some messages for the conference, but I was sitting there as the MC, the Master of Ceremonies was talking about the conference and what they hoped to accomplish. It occurred to me I had never in my entire life been at a conference on love. I'd never heard of one, I'd never been to one, and I certainly had never spoken to one. And there I was.

I was sitting there and I realized that what is the greatest thing I had never actually experienced in the form of a Christian gathering specifically. Now I think you could say that because every law of God is a law of love, every time you touch the law of God and speak of it, you're doing a conference on love. I think we should acknowledge that. Anytime you preach or hear anything from the Bible, you're hearing about love. So in one way, every sermon ought to be an exposition of love in some fashion.

But it really struck me that I'd never really known of a conference like that. And even though the Bible says the greatest is love it seems to be the least among the conferences What's that all about? And so this passage speaks of love which is a subject that seems to be neglected but this text that we're in today is also about heaven, which is another neglected doctrine. You don't hear much about heaven in Christian pulpits, and I've never actually been to a conference on heaven. So here in 1 Corinthians 13, the Apostle Paul speaks of love and of heaven, two things that seem to be neglected in the Christian context.

Now the Apostle Paul in 1 Corinthians 13, he begins on earth and he ends it in heaven in the passage that we're in now. Now we can never forget the context of this passage of scripture. It exists within Paul's instruction on the gifts of the Spirit. Now Paul is answering lots of questions of the Corinthians, questions about lawsuits, questions about manhood and womanhood, questions about all kinds of things. And then he gets to this matter of the gifts of the Spirit because they're so confused about it.

And the whole context really is the way that giftedness in the church operates. So the whole context is how we relate to one another in the church and how we contribute to the church. That's why in chapter 12, the chapter just before 13, he's speaking about how God has appointed various gifts to be operating in the church. And he says to earnestly desire the best gifts. And then at the very end of chapter 12, he says, and yet I show you a more excellent way and then he starts talking about love and Then he gives this marvelous declaration about love in chapter 12 and then in chapter 14 right after that He commands them to pursue love but not to neglect the gifts at the same time and he declares that the gifts of the Holy Spirit should be working.

He says pursue love and desire spiritual gifts but especially that you may prophesy. In other words especially that you speak the word of God to one another. So you see this outline in front of you, 1st Corinthians 13, we've already covered the first two points, we're going to cover the last two here today. First there's the value of love, without love you ain't nothing, in verses 1 through 3, and then the signs of love from four through seven and there are 15 marks of love during that section and then the permanence of love verses eight through 12 and the supremacy of love verse 13 and those two sections will be what we'll focus on in this session here today. And so if you see the logic of the Apostle Paul in 1st Corinthians 13, it really gives you sort of the big picture of love all the way from earth to heaven.

Paul has just instructed the Corinthian Church on the value of love in verses 1 through 3 and he makes it very clear that nothing is worth anything without love. And then he is explaining these 15 marks of love. Now, this is not an exhaustive list. The Bible gives a greater list, but it's representative of what's there. Why such a list?

And why such a discussion about earth and heaven? And perhaps He gives us this list and also these matters of the greatness of love to encourage us because of the great lack of love that we experience in this world because we do experience a great lack of love in this world. However, I was thinking about just this morning, this being Father's Day, I was thinking of the great love I've received from my family. You know, I have received every single one of these 15 marks of love from my family, from everyone in my family. And I'm so thankful for that.

As far as it is from my children and my wife toward me, it has been a world of love. And those marks have been present toward me as a father and I'm so thankful for that. But at the same time we also have to recognize that we all have experienced acts of lack of love toward us and we've also experienced a sensation of realizing that we've not loved others as well. We've said things, we've thought things, we've felt things, we've done things that we're not loving. And so the Apostle is bringing these things about, I think, perhaps to encourage us.

Because all these things would get tested. In a home, they get tested in a workplace, they get tested in a church. I don't know who it was who said to live up above with those we love that will be glory But to live below with those Who we know well, that's another story And the apostle is coming to us with these distinguishing marks of love that are so helpful to us. And so we come to this section that begins with these words, love never fails. And it's just an affirmation of what Paul stated in the first three verses that without love you ain't nothing that love is a supreme thing and here but he's speaking verses of the temporary nature of spiritual gifts.

Now, I want us to try to keep our focus on what is the Apostle Paul's primary supreme point. And it is that love is supreme, that love is the only thing that really matters for all eternity. And at the same time, God gives other things to his people, the gifts of the Spirit, as interim ways of learning of his love and being equipped. And so this whole thing is in verses 8 through 12 is about the temporary nature of spiritual gifts and he mentions these three gifts, prophecies, tongues, and knowledge. These three things are temporary and they will pass away.

He uses they will vanish. And a maturing church will understand that a maturing church won't be so dazzled by somebody's gifts. The older you get, the less dazzled you are with people's gifts. Because you see often how you can have remarkable giftedness but no love. And the older you get, the more you'll see it.

And You'll see how true it is That love is the greatest Because you can have remarkable wisdom remarkable knowledge remarkable abilities to communicate and serve and give and sacrifice and there be no love there and the older you get the more you'll see it so the Apostle Paul is trying to mature the Corinthian church because they were so dazzled by the giftedness. You know in the midst of so many prominent men that have fallen in recent years, one of the things that I think many Christians have been thankful for is just to have an ordinary old pastor. A guy who gets up every morning and he does his job, he does his work. He might not be the fanciest communicator in the world, he might not draw thousands and thousands of people, but he falls on his face, He loves God. You know, he might not have the turn of phrase like that other guy on the internet, but he's a faithful man.

He's a plain man. He's an ordinary man. And he's a loving man. But God is trying to mature the Corinthian Church to help them not be so dazzled by their celebrity culture that they live in. We live in a culture just like that, where we gravitate towards the celebrities, and it can really be harmful to us.

And we're deceived when we so exalt celebrities and forget love. And so God is trying to mature the Corinthian church so that they will understand what is truly valuable, so that they can keep their focus, so they can keep the main thing the main thing. How do you major on the majors and minor on the minors? How do you keep your focus on what is primary? That is really critical for a church.

And here what he's saying is that love is primary. The Pharisees majored on the minors. They strained out a gnat and they swallowed a camel. Jesus said that they neglected the weightier matters of the law. They forgot what the main thing was and that love was the main thing.

And here the Apostle Paul is saying that if you want to major on the main thing, major on love. Forget the celebrities. Forget the gifts. Forget the pizzazz in a church or in a family or anywhere else. And remember there's only one thing that lasts, it's love.

You know I have I have friends that they go to churches where people they show up and they leave and they hardly have any connection with each other at all and there's very little opportunity to love because you can't know these people because they all do the same thing. They show up and they split by noon as quick as they can. And I know that's sort of a caricature in many ways, but this kind of culture does exist in churches where there's really no opportunity to love. But love is the main thing. So the purpose of everything in heaven and on earth is love and nothing matters without love.

That's why he says love never fails. Love never fails at all. It's supreme in every way. And so these three gifts he's saying will pass away in heaven and he's obviously not denigrating these gifts. He's saying they should be in operation.

You know we should we should improve the gifts that we have. We should exercise them but don't ever forget what is the ground of them all. All the gifts don't mean anything without love. Love can easily be replaced by a lot of good things. Love never fails, but often it fails because we appreciate other things.

You might, as a local church or an individual, you ask, What has taken the place of love in my life? What's taken the place of love in your church? Or what's taken the place of love in your family? Are there things that we're doing now that we're just clueless of love. You know when we were at Bible study on Tuesday morning we're talking about this whole matter and we were talking about the Father, the Father who says shut up and sit down we're gonna have devotions.

And so you had devotions sort of but where was the love? Everything in life is like that. The Corinthians were so proud of their giftedness and I think it should help us to ask, what are we proud of about our church that can be done without love? Because lots of things can just be done without love and have an outward appearance, but there's really no no love in it. What are we doing today that's without love?

You know, you can sing a hymn without love. You can listen to preaching without love. You can study the Bible without love. You can fellowship without love, serve without love, you can talk without love, you can practice hospitality without love, you can do nearly anything and everything without love. And the Apostle Paul, in order to demonstrate the superiority of love and the transitory nature of the gifts, he gives several illustrations that are here in verses 8 through 12.

And all of these illustrations show that love is more important than any giftedness, that giftedness is secondary and love is primary. And that's the whole message of 1 Corinthians 13. And so there are these illustrations. And The first illustration is the partial nature of knowledge and prophecy. That's in verse 9.

The second illustration is that these three gifts will be done away with in verse 10. And third, that these gifts are signs of immaturity in verse 11. And then fourth, what you get from these gifts is like seeing through a glass darkly. So he gives these four illustrations of how the gifts are just transitory and love is primary and love never fails. He's illustrating it with these four illustrations.

But he's just trying to say that nothing matters without love. Love never fails. And you can never fail when you love in that sense with the love of God So let's take these one by one these illustrations because it'll help us to understand just how transitory He is saying these gifts are they are important for the church But they're not all important because love is all important. Now the first is the partial nature of knowledge and prophecy. Do you see that in verse 9?

He says, for we know in part and we prophesy in part. Knowing and prophesying is partial. It's incomplete. Now It's incomplete on so many different levels like for example Let's take the prophets every prophet in the Bible God never revealed everything to the prophets the prophets only revealed a sliver So even if you have prophecy you only get something that's partial Paul is saying that the prophets give some knowledge and they give some prophetic understanding, but they don't have everything. And he's saying that the gifts help us temporarily in this life with our imperfections.

They help us make progress. The giftedness in the church is such a beautiful thing because it helps each member make progress in the faith. And the second illustration is that these gifts will be done away with. Verse 10. But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.

So The illustration here shifts to the perfect that is coming. And so he's contrasting what is not perfect, knowledge and prophecy, with what is perfect, which is to come. Now, what is the perfect? And there have been many men who have had different particular opinions about this. Some have thought that the perfect was the word of God.

Others have thought that it was heaven. These are two main views. My view is that he's talking about heaven, that the perfect is heaven when we put off our earthly bodies. We have new bodies. We live in a new state of perfection where all your tears are dried away and everything is perfected.

But the heart of what he's saying, whatever you think the perfect is, to me is incidental. Because what's primary is that he's saying the gifts are temporary. These gifts will pass away in heaven, but love does not pass away. That the world and its giftedness and its celebrities and its capabilities and its glitz is gonna pass away and something better will replace it all. Now we could get into a great discussion about tongues and all these kinds of things, but that's not Paul's primary focus here.

His primary is to declare the supremacy of love, and as a pastor here, I think that's what we need the most. I don't think we need a big long dissertation on the gift of tongues right now. So we're not going to focus on that. We're going to focus on what is Paul's primary thrust of this passage of Scripture, and it is the supremacy of love. And then he gives this other illustration in verse 11, the third illustration, that these three gifts are signs, well, I'll just say it, they're signs of immaturity.

They're signs of childhood. He says, when I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child, but when I became a man, I put away childish things. Now Paul is giving a personal illustration of the nature of the gifts on earth now, of tongues and prophecy and knowledge. Well, they are for this time. They're for the time of immaturity, where we're like children.

And Paul is giving this illustration that when you're a child you speak as a child but when you become a man you put away childish things and I believe he's talking about when you are in the world in the church you're like a child but when you become a man or when you're in heaven when you're perfected when you are mature then you don't need those gifts any longer he's making that illustration and in one way he's saying that the gifts as helpful as they might be as remarkable as the most remarkable communicators might be as helpful as the most serving gracious people you can ever run into it's still baby talk. It's good, it causes you to be sanctified it's a blessing, it helps you on your heavenly journey The cups of cold water that are given are sweet the instruction that is true and changes your life and Moves you along and gives you hope and help in this world, it's good. But here's what you need to know. God has something so much better. You think of the most wonderful thing that's ever happened to you, the most wonderful thing that anybody has ever done for you or to you, the most remarkable thing you've ever discovered it's only a little bit it's a teeny taste of what God has for you it's wonderful but it's not perfectly wonderful And God gives you this wonderfulness to lure you to heaven to show you that there's even more to come.

But even the greatest thing that you experience right now is just baby talk. When I was a child I spoke as a child. You know One of the most wonderful parts and entertaining parts of being a father and then a grandfather is that you get this front row seat of baby talk and all the progression of talk and just the hilarious things your children say and you just have to write them down. They're so funny because you don't want to forget them. But the Apostle Paul is making this illustration that when I was a child, I spoke as a child.

But he's talking about our time here. When we see through a glass darkly, well that's the next illustration. But there are things that are no longer needed when you are mature. And so as we're in this world, we're like children. And during our time in this world, even the greatest gifts which are necessary and helpful, they still are marks of our immaturity because there's a greater maturity in heaven that is coming.

That is coming. You know in 1st Corinthians 3.1 Paul makes it really clear that the Corinthians were like babies he said, and brethren I could not speak to you as to spiritual people but as to carnal, as to babes in Christ. I fed you with milk and not with solid food, for until now you are not able to receive it, and even now you are still not able. And so he acknowledges that they are like children. He says, brethren do not be children in understanding, however in malice be babes, but in understanding be mature.

So the Gifts are given for increasing maturity. They are good, but they are still a function of an imperfect world that are designed to make us more mature. And all of this is designed to say that the purpose of everything in earth and heaven is love, and that in heaven there is the perfection of every imperfect thing that we see on earth. When I was a child, I spoke as a child. But there's a day when you won't speak as a child any longer.

And then the fourth illustration is in verse 12, and he uses the illustration of a glass or a mirror. When you get these gifts, it's like seeing through a glass darkly in verse 12. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known." You know, have you ever wondered why you can never be satisfied with the knowledge you have. Like you never say, I know enough, I understand enough.

A true Christian's never like that because he knows that what he has can be improved upon dramatically. That's because we see through a mirror dimly. It's like we see shadows now of things to come. The gifts are shadows. They're like the image that you see in a mirror.

It's not the real thing. It's a reflection that gives you a vision for the real thing. And it draws you to the real thing. When you see something in the mirror it is unforgettable, you know it but it's not fully beautiful It's not the exact thing. It's a it's a copy of the thing and That's what he's saying in this illustration that what you get from these gifts is like seeing through a glass darkly.

And everywhere you look, you're looking in a mirror dimly. All the gifts of the Spirit that you experience, all the gifts of the Spirit that you have, are dim expressions. And this should also help us to make sure we understand our position. We're a humble people. We are still a dark people.

And even in our best giftedness, we still see through a glass darkly and we are dark in the glass. And this should humble us and make us cry out to God but also to think of the glory that awaits us, that there is perfection that's coming. We struggle for more knowledge, we struggle for more insight and wisdom, we struggle for more love, we struggle for all these things, but it's because this is the burden of this world. And one of these burdens is that we see through a glass darkly on this earth. And so the apostle is giving all these illustrations of how love is superior, it never fails, But the gifts are necessary, but they don't do everything you want to do.

You know, back in my neighborhood, in Tobacco Land, what they say about something that doesn't quite get it, something that isn't quite enough, they say, that don't hit no much. Well it hits a little bit, you know, it hits as much as we need now. But there's something greater that the apostle Paul is referring to. And that's why he says, On earth you see through a mirror, but then you see that word but then but then face to face and He's he's speaking of The work of the Holy Spirit that finds its culmination in heaven. Now there is a way that before heaven we can behold the face of Jesus as in a mirror.

And That's the hope of heaven to see Jesus, to become like Jesus now as you look at his face. And that's what the apostle Paul was referring to in 2 Corinthians chapter 3 verse 18, where he tells the church how the Holy Spirit works on this earth. The Holy Spirit works like a mirror, but it's transforming you. And he says, now the Lord is the Spirit, in verse 17 in St. Corinthians 3, And where the Spirit of the Lord is, there's liberty.

But we all, with unveiled face, beholding as in a mirror, the glory of the Lord are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, just as by the Spirit of the Lord. What the apostle Paul is saying is, yes, you see through a glass darkly, but that's not the end of the story. You can be enlightened in your darkness and What God has done is he sent his spirit into the world to transform you from glory to glory So there's this progress in glory in other words the darkness gets less and less and the light gets brighter and brighter. Remember in Isaiah where Isaiah says your son will not go down and the whole implication is that the Sun is rising in your heart and more and more darkness is eclipsed by the rising of that sun, your sun will not go down, that you are being transformed from glory to glory as you behold the face of Jesus Christ. So while it is true we see through a glass darkly, we shouldn't get too despondent about it because we've also been given the Holy Spirit.

We've been given Jesus Christ to behold His face and light shines ever brighter in beholding the face of Jesus Christ. So He holds out this hope To us, but it's the hope from the power of the Holy Spirit You know, how do you behold the face of Jesus you read the words of Jesus and you meditate upon them? And you saturate your mind on them and as you behold the face of Jesus through the words that Jesus wrote, which by the way he wrote everything from Genesis to Revelation, then you are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory. So on the one hand while it don't hit no much it keeps hitting God keeps working through his spirit to eclipse the darkness of your life and This is really the whole Christian life that God comes into darkness the light shines into darkness and the darkness gets overcome by it. It's the power of the Holy Spirit.

And then he says, Now in heaven you will know Him in a way you've never known Him before. Because you're seeing through a glass darkly now, but that will change. Even this glass darkly is transforming you. But then he says that, but then I shall know just as I am known. And he's speaking of both earth and heaven.

And he's saying that you shall know him completely in heaven. But he gives an illustration of how. You will know God in heaven the way that God knows you now. The way you are known now. Don't miss this.

This is really wonderful. God knows everything about you now. He sees into your heart. He unmasks all of your motives. He knows you.

He knows you absolutely perfectly. Nothing is hidden from his sight. God sees and he sees in you and through you. And this brings up the whole beautiful matter of what it means to live in the kingdom of God now, that you are known. That you are known.

Now as you know, as you've walked through with us from 1st John up into this excursion briefly in 1st Corinthians 13, you know what the whole subject is that we're working on in our church. What does it mean to have fellowship with God? What does it mean to know God? What does it mean that he knows you? Now when you study what it means to have fellowship with God you'll realize that most of the fellowship is coming from God to you.

It's remarkable what God does and as he has fellowship there's this reciprocal relationship but it's heavy-weighted on God. God is fellowshiping with you way more than you are with him And this is one manifestation of it that he knows you perfectly he knows you Thoroughly and we're talking about what it means to know God and when you know God you love but You are also known I love this little phrase, but then I shall know just as I am known. Just as I am known. I think J.I. Packer captures this in such beautiful language in his book, Knowing God.

Here's what he says, what matters supremely therefore is not in the last analysis the fact that I know God but the larger fact which underlies it, the fact that he knows me. I am graven on the palms of his hands. Isaiah 49, 16. I am never out of his mind. All my knowledge of him depends on his sustained initiative in knowing me.

I know him because he first knew me and continues to know me. He knows me as a friend, one who loves me, and there is no moment when his eye is off me or his attention is distracted from me, and no moment therefore when his care falters. To be known by God is the greatest of love. And think of it like this. To recognize that He knows you and He still loves you.

He knows you and He loves you. This is God's love for sinners. This is the gospel of Jesus Christ that's encapsulated in 1st Corinthians 13. In our human relationships, it's our knowledge of people that makes us hate them. But with God, it's His knowledge of us that makes Him love us.

And that's why John says, behold what manner of love the Father has given unto us that we should be called the sons of God. You cannot miss the power of the love of God that He knows you And He loves you. This is not like any human love, because the more we get to know people, the more we distrust them or the more we hate them. God's love is not like our love. Now Packer continues with these words.

This is momentous knowledge There is unspeakable comfort the sort of comfort that energizes Be it said not Intervates In knowing that God is constantly taking knowledge of me in love and watching over me for my good, there is tremendous relief in knowing that his love to me is utterly realistic, based at every point on prior knowledge of the worst about me, so that no discovery can now disillusion him about me in the way I am so often disillusioned about myself and quench his determination to bless me. This is the love of God that you are loved by God and known by God. One of the things that I told Deborah when I married her, right, it was in the first days of our marriage, I told her that I did not care what I found out about her. I was going to love her. And this is a love that comes only, exclusively from God.

From God. So the permanence of love, verses 8 through 12, love never fails. Now the supremacy of love, a slightly different category but related to the other things that have been said, and now abide faith, hope, love, these three. So he names these three remarkably beautiful things in the world, faith, hope, and love. Wow, these are so helpful.

But the greatest of these is love. Now, Paul spoke of prophecy in tongues and knowledge to illustrate the one thing, and now he speaks of faith and hope. Two things that are necessary here that are not necessary in heaven. Now Faith, hope, and love are all for now. We need them.

And we need them desperately. Our faith needs to grow, our hope needs to grow, our love needs to grow now in this life, in every relationship situation we're in. Now, why is love the greatest? Now there are two reasons. Faith and hope are not attributes of God.

Love is an attribute of God, faith and hope are not. See, he's talking about, he's dissecting the importance of things and when they are needed. But faith and hope are not attributes of God. Now God is love, but God is not faith. God is not hope.

So faith and hope are different compared to love. All three are necessary. But God is not faith, God is not hope, God is the object of faith and hope. But God is not faith or hope. The second thing that he makes it clear here is that neither faith or hope are necessary in heaven.

You don't need faith in heaven. You don't need hope in heaven. We need hope here. It carries us through the trials and tribulations we need faith here It helps us through our difficulties you know hope is absolutely necessary for life on this earth. And you know, hope is so easily lost here.

And I'm always so aware that whenever I'm preaching, there's somebody in the room who's lost hope. Almost always, I'm sure. So hope is something that we are always going to desperately need, And we're carried along by hope in this world. You know, the Apostle Paul rejoiced when he saw hope in the churches in the New Testament. Like for example, in Colossians 1, 4 through 5, Paul says that he's thankful for the hope that exists in that Colossian church.

Same thing with the Thessalonians church in 1 Thessalonians 1 verses 2 and 3. He says, I give thanks to God always for you all because of the patience of hope in our Lord Jesus Christ in the sight of God the Father. It's so important that we have hope in this world but there's a time when you'll no longer need hope to prop you up and that hope is in heaven. And so the Apostle Paul is saying that no the greatest of these is love and this final statement these last words in 1st Corinthians 13, is really the whole summary of everything he's been saying. The greatest of these is love.

And that's why John says if anybody says he loves God and hates his brother, he's a liar, because the greatest of these is love. That's why Paul says without love you ain't nothing. You can prophesy, you can think, you can turn double back flips, you can be such a hot shot and be nothing because the greatest is love. But when you have no more need of faith and no more need of hope, when your body has been laid down in the grave and your soul is in a state of everlasting joy, you'll have the greatest of these in all its perfection. Because the greatest of these is love.

Heaven is a place of perfect love. And all these things on this earth that we have seen through a glass darkly, They're designed to draw us into that world of love, to tell us that there's something greater. You know, every time you have lost any kind of hope, any time you're falling into the fear of man, you know, faltering under greed and selfishness, and you realize what is happening to you all those things are reminders of something greater And in heaven Jesus Christ is the object of everything. God is love and Jesus is the radiance of his love. In the center of heaven is this eternal center of love, this eternal fountain of undying, perfected love because of the Lord Jesus Christ.

You know, in Pilgrim's Progress, the character Steadfast is looking toward heaven, and he says that heaven is like a golden coal. He says, the waters indeed are to the palate bitter and to the stomach cold. He's talking about life on earth. And yet the thoughts of what I'm going to and what awaits for me on the other side doth lie as a glowing coal in my heart. I See myself now at the end of my journey my toilsome days are ended I'm now going to see that head that was crowned with thorns in that face that was spit upon for me.

I have formerly lived by hearsay and faith, but now I go where I shall live by sight, and shall be with him in whose company I delight myself. I have loved to hear my Lord spoken of and wherever I have seen the print of his shoe on earth there I have coveted to set my foot too. His name has been to me sweeter than all perfumes. His voice is to me most sweet. And His countenance I have more desired than those who have desired the light of the sun.

Like a golden coal waiting out there. So the apostle begins on earth in 1st Corinthians 13 and he ends in heaven where the greatest of these is love. Where you never struggle with sin, you never fail in discipline again, you never despise yourself again, you never hurt your wife or your children or your friend again, you never cause tears again, and you never have tears again. And the Lord's prayer gets answered in its completeness, deliver us from evil. It's all done there in heaven.

And what the apostle Paul is saying is that the purpose of everything is love, which finds its final perfection in heaven. Nothing matters without love. Nothing lasts without love. Nothing is beautiful without love. Now I wanna give you just some Quick applications.

This being Father's Day. What fathers do in love exceeds their gifts of knowledge and all of their fancy footwork. God so loved the world that he gave his only son. Love is the beginning of fatherhood and everything that flows from it. And that love is expressed in fathers and mothers and grandmothers and aunts and uncles and all those who are designed to be part of this gracious cascade of love, this fountain of love that's designed to flow in the world until love is perfected.

Another application really has to do with those who fear their significance, you know, and they are always asking what's the value, you know, what's the value of my life, you know, how do you how do you assess your life? Forget forget all the world's measurements, measure it by love, That's the only thing that matters. It doesn't matter how much money you have, it doesn't matter the position, it doesn't matter how cool you look or are or think you are because everybody who is cool really only thinks he is. But the only thing that matters is love. You know, you can see the greatness of the mercy of God towards sinners in all these marks of love, the long-suffering, the kindness, all of these 15 marks are so helpful.

Now I want to again remind us as I have tried to do in these messages on love of the fact of the love of God, that the love of God, it is greater than tongue or pen can ever tell. God loves his enemies and he brings them to himself. God loves those who have no love. Man loves his friend. Man loves the person who can do good to him.

Man loves those who flatter him. Man loves those who have a kindred spirit, but God loves sinners. God loves the ignorant. God loves enemies and gives them rain and food and shelter and beauty, and he does them good because the greatest of these is love. And I want to finally end with some words of Jonathan Edwards who speaks of this world of love because that world is the pattern for our world.

The apostle tells us that God is love and therefore seeing he is an infinite being it follows that he is an infinite fountain of love. Seeing he is an all-sufficient being it follows that he is a full and overflowing and inexhaustible fountain of love. Seeing he is an all-sufficient being, it follows that he is a full and overflowing and inexhaustible fountain of love. Seeing he is unchanging and an eternal being, he is an unchangeable and eternal source of love. There even in heaven dwells that God from whom every stream of holy love, yes every drop that is or ever was proceeds.

There dwells God the Father and the Son, who are united in infinitely dear and incomprehensible mutual love. There dwells God the Father, who is the Father of mercies, and so the Father of love, who So loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever Believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life there dwells Jesus Christ the Lamb of God The Prince of Peace and love who so loved the world that he shed his blood and poured out his soul unto death for it. There dwells the mediator by whom all God's love is expressed to the saints, by whom the fruits of it have been purchased, and through whom they are communicated, and through whom love is imparted to the hearts of all the church. There dwells Christ in both his natures, his human and divine, sitting with the Father in the same throne. There is the Holy Spirit, the Spirit of love divine, in whom the very essence of God, as it were, flows out or is breathed forth in love, and by those whose immediate influence all holy love is shed abroad in the hearts of all the church.

There is in heaven this fountain of love, this Eternal three in one is set open without any obstacle to hinder access to it There is this glorious God Manifested shining forth in full glory in beams of love There the fountain overflows in streams and rivers of love and delight, enough for all to drink at and to swim in, yea, so as to overflow the world as if it were a deluge of love. The purpose of everything is love, and nothing matters without love and nothing lasts without love. God has seen fit to bring together His church whose chief mark is love. Jesus said that they'll know that you're Christians because you love one another But we always have to remember that love is not a decision it's not a discipline It's an ever-flowing fountain from God himself He who loves is born of God. Would you pray with me?

Oh Lord, you've taken us through these marvelous words of yours. Help us to remember them and to live them out. I pray that you would make a little world of love here at Hope Baptist Church, that we would be a people of this kind of love, of love and joy and peace and patience and kindness and goodness and faithfulness and gentleness and self-control. Lord, we thank you for this world of love. Thank you for bringing love into the world, into a loveless world, into our loveless hearts, that we might know you.

But more than anything, that you might know us and love us. Amen.