In his sermon 'Utterly Worthless,' Scott Brown explores the profound message of 1 Corinthians 13, underscoring the necessity of love as the foundation of all actions and gifts. Brown argues that without love, actions such as eloquence, prophecy, understanding mysteries, knowledge, faith, generosity, and self-sacrifice are utterly worthless. He emphasizes the importance of examining the inner motivations behind actions, cautioning against the facade of outward appearances. Love, as defined by the sermon, is not merely a feeling or an action but a disposition of the heart that arises from fellowship with God, facilitated by the Holy Spirit. Brown connects this teaching with the sequential exposition of 1 John, highlighting love as a crucial test of fellowship and salvation. The sermon calls for self-examination and a redefinition of success, suggesting that true success is achieved through love. Brown concludes with a call to cultivate love from a young age and stresses the role of love in evangelism, community, and all aspects of life.

If you would please remain standing as the sermon text is read in our hearing before the preaching of the word from 1 Corinthians 13. If you're reading from 1 Corinthians 13, the first three verses. Many of you know Scott's going to be preaching on this for several weeks, and the words are familiar. I pray that God would arrest our souls and enlighten us, bring revelation to words that we've heard many times. Verse 1, though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.

And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor and though I give my body to be burned but have not love it profits me nothing let's pray together Lord thank you for directing us towards these verses this morning. Lord, in your sovereign hand, these are the verses that we need to hear. And we do pray, God, you would enlighten us, reveal, Lord, open our hearts to things we've heard but need to hear again in maybe a new and fresh way, Lord. Have us hearts open that we will be examining our own actions, our own hearts of love and lack of love.

To pray for Scott as he preaches to lead and guide and Lord you would apply this in wonderful ways today we ask and pray. Amen. Well these are some of the most well-known words to those who are in the inner circles of the Christian faith, but also very common to those who are on the periphery or know really very little about true Christian faith. And so I hope that their commonness isn't lost on us here, but they strike to the heart of our identity. We like to think of ourselves in a particular way, and we create an image of ourselves, and we try to present that image in different ways.

It's our whole identity and this passage really speaks about that outward identity. What do you do? How do you think of yourself? But what the Apostle Paul does is this, what's underneath it? We know who you are in the outside But what's going on on the inside?

The Apostle Paul is attacking that issue very carefully with these words here. And I'm sure there are many reasons for that. We are too easily impressed with ourselves with the outward appearances, and we're also too easily impressed with the outward appearances of others. That's why we have a celebrity culture today. We are so easily impressed by outward external features of a person's life and that's why things like Facebook are so popular because you can give such a marvelous impression externally of who you are but is that who you really are and I think everybody everybody who knows anything about social media knows that who you present yourself to be may actually not be who you are.

So the Apostle Paul is pressing hard down into these issues of identity and our desire to be significant, our desire to have a life that has meaning. Everybody wants that. Especially when you're young, you say, I want to do something great. Well that never leaves you. Well it manifests itself in some youthful naivete.

That desire to do something with your life that matters never ever leaves you. So Paul is talking about what matters. What are you doing with your life and does it really matter? And Paul is going to press very deeply into this whole matter. We often undervalue what's truly valuable and we overvalue what isn't valuable at all.

I had a couple of children ask me this morning what words they should listen for today. And it's really very simple today. Just two words. Love and nothing. Those two words.

Love and nothing dominate this whole passage of Scripture. In these two words, there's really insight into our significance and what we value, overvalue, and undervalue. So it's all here in this passage of scripture. We're often too impressed with what we have made ourselves out to be, and we're not enough impressed by what God says is truly valuable. So here we are, we're in 1 Corinthians 13.

Why are we in 1 Corinthians 13? We're in 1 Corinthians 13 because this is a companion text. It's sort of an exposition of what we studied last week in 1st John. We're involved in a sequential exposition of 1st John. And John has been elaborating on what it means to have fellowship with God.

And he's really bringing a warning to those who think they have fellowship with God, but it really is not proven by the realities that are of their lives. And so, just last week, John gave us two case studies to help us to understand whether we have fellowship with God, whether we are true believers or not. And he makes it clear that love and hate help you to understand whether you are a child of God. And it's a test of fellowship, it's a test of salvation. And John has already given us three tests of salvation and the first is walking in darkness if you walk in darkness you have no fellowship with God that's chapter 1 verse 6 and then secondly he says that if you say you have no sin you're deceiving yourselves And then thirdly in chapter 2 verses 3 through 6, he says if we walk in his commandments it indicates that we know him but if we don't love and obey his commandments it's just an indicator that we don't know him.

And then John gives this fourth test of love and hate and the question is do you love or do you hate and if you hate your brother then you do not know God you don't have fellowship with God. So that's the whole argument that he makes. John talks a lot about love in his letter. In fact, there are 2, 630 words in 1 John, and 756 of those words are dedicated to this subject of love. So John wants us to understand what love looks like.

And so last week we had sort of an introduction to John's teaching on love and we'll continue that on after we finish Four Sundays in 1 Corinthians 13. And so John is calling for self-examination because it's too easy to put on a cloak of righteousness that doesn't really reach the heart. Now John would have us be driven into a crisis of assurance to ask ourselves whether we really know God. You know often people go through crises of assurance and it's not such a bad thing for people who name the name of Jesus Christ to ask, has Jesus Christ changed my life? Am I truly saved?

Has he broken the power of sin? Has he given me new affections? Not am I perfect but am I being perfected in love? That's the question that every Christian should be asking and Often we go through a season, maybe a short one, maybe a long one, maybe a few seasons, where we're almost in pieces and we're really crying out to God, am I saved? And this is what John is really calling for his readers to do, is to examine themselves, And he gives them various points of self-examination.

I believe I counted 16 or 17 tests of faith in 1 John. And so that's why we're going through 1 Corinthians 13, because it provides the words that help us to define love. Now, last week I said that love was not a decision. It's a fruit of the Spirit. It's an outflow of fellowship with God.

It's not something that you do, it's something that God does as a result of his work in your heart. And I want to add today that love isn't a feeling. Love is a disposition of the heart that is created by the filling of the Holy Spirit. And it is a filling that arouses feelings. Because love is of God.

Because God is love. And so it does include feelings, but they are feelings that are aroused by a filling of the Holy Spirit. And we have to understand how love works. Love isn't just buckling down and doing something. It's like every once in a while I remember my children would say the right thing to their sibling and they'd say, I'm sorry.

Well, they weren't really sorry. They just said the word. So this is what happens to us. We often find ourselves with just an outward manifestation of something, but it hasn't really come from God. If it had come from God, my child would have said, oh, I am so sorry I've sinned against you please I don't want to be like this.

Well that's a totally different response. Of course someone can fake that as well and they can speak nicely and not have nice in their hearts. But all this to say that love isn't just something you buckle on on the outside. It's something that comes as a result of your fellowship with God because God is love. And we have to understand that fundamentally.

And particularly as we go into 1 Corinthians, While John helps us to understand 1 Corinthians 13, 1 Corinthians 13 also helps us to understand John. They're mutually helpful in interpreting one another. So we talked last week about the person who hates. The person who hates is stumbling. They have no guiding principle.

They're just like a pinball in a machine being bounced from one offense to another. They have nothing to keep them in a direction. They just bounce off of one offense to another. But the person who loves has a guiding principle. They have the filling of the Holy Spirit and they also have words that describe what love really is so that they're not just making up their own version of love.

I remember there was a book written a long time ago where the big line and it was love means you never have to say you're sorry. Well, that's not love at all. But we like to reinterpret what it means to love. Now, we can't understand 1 Corinthians 13 and what it teaches about love without understanding the context of 1 Corinthians 13 and its immediate historical context and the things that that it was written for. And I would just like to say we cannot understand how 1 Corinthians 13 applies in Wake Forest or whatever your address might be until we understand how it applied to those in Corinth because these words are not best just taken out of their context and read because they did come out of a particular context.

Now of course the audience is the church in Corinth and in 1st Corinthians Paul is answering various questions. They had been asking him questions. They have problems and now they have questions. That's what's happening in Corinth. It was a true Christian church.

You know, we often have a bad attitude about Corinth because of the problems there, but it was a church of Jesus Christ that the apostle Paul loved, and we should recognize that. But Paul was answering questions about real problems, divisions in the church, immorality in the church, lawsuits. Christians were dragging one another to court and threatening one another with civil litigation. There were problems with what women were doing in the church. There were problems in the Lord's Supper.

The rich were having these love feasts and celebrating the Lord's Supper, and they were gobbling up all the food before the poor people got there. They were selfish. They just wanted to have their great parties that they were so used to in their erudite society. And so there were all kinds of problems that were there. And there was hero worship in the church as well.

Some were of Paul, some were of Apollos, and they were exalting men in ways that were very, very inappropriate. There was envy over gifts. One person would look at another and say, I'm nothing, not compared to him. And that other person would say, I am so gifted. So there was envy and lack of gratitude in this church.

And so the apostle Paul is addressing each one of these. Now when we get to 1st Corinthians 13, which is in the heart of the section about spiritual gifts, the abuse of spiritual gifts, and envy over spiritual gifts in the heart of 1st Corinthians 12 through 14 which is about this entire problem of how people saw giftedness and outward expressions of spirituality Right in the middle of this is 1st Corinthians 13, and it stands in the center of it for a reason because Everything that the Apostle Paul is trying to communicate about spiritual gifts. It has to be understood in the context of love now just a couple of thoughts about Corinth. Corinth was a church that took itself seriously. First Corinthians 13 is a good place to go, especially for a church that takes itself very seriously.

The Corinthians were passionate about their faith. The Corinthians wanted the full extent of their faith to be expressed. They were gifted at the same time they were immature. They had just been converted into this new world. They'd come out of all their experiences in Corinth.

It was a pagan, idolatrous city with sexual immorality, probably, that would far exceed what you see here in America today. But as they came into the church, they carried over with them their ways of thinking, and they carried over with them their ways of loving. That's a problem, because we like to define love, and then we like to exalt ourselves by our definition because typically when we define love we define it according to what we think we are accomplished with and so as a result to the immaturity there are all these awkward situations that were taking place at the Lord's Supper, in the law courts, all over the place. But the immediate context here is that of spiritual gifts. And the Apostle Paul is instructing that there are many gifts but there is one Lord, that there are many members but one body.

When the apostle Paul speaks of gifts, he concludes at least his discussion of it in chapter 12 with these words, and yet I show you a more excellent way." In other words, the gifts aren't the more excellent way. What you do isn't the most excellent way in terms of your giftedness, the way that God has uniquely created you. Even the manifestations of the Holy Spirit aren't even the most excellent way as they express themselves in prophesying and gifts of mercy and things like that. Let me show you a more excellent way. So the Apostle Paul is exalting love over all gifts and you see that right at the end of chapter 12.

And then in chapter 14 right after 1 Corinthians 13 the Apostle Paul says to pursue love. He says pursue love and desire the spiritual gifts. But he's saying, hunt it down, pursue, to hunt down love, pursue love with all men. In other words, to go after it hotly. After he had been listing all these blessings of the spiritual gifts in the church, he says, pursue love and also recognize there's a more excellent way than any of your outward appearances.

And so The Apostle Paul is addressing things now in this passage on the things that lie at the surface of life, the things that we do, the things that really form our identity and make us congratulate ourselves about how effective and how helpful we are to other people. But he's dealing with what's under the surface here. So the question is, what is our identity? What is your identity? But more importantly, what's under the surface?

What is motivating it? Basically, he's saying that you can possess all these gifts and really be nothing. He's not saying that their effect is nothing. He's not saying the effect is nothing because it might have an effect. He says, you are nothing.

You ain't nothing. That's what he's saying. You, yes, you personally. Now the Apostle Paul personalizes it. He says, I am nothing.

He begins with himself. And that's very helpful to us. But love is a secret virtue and everything not done in love is utterly worthless and you ain't nothing without love. So let's begin. He lists several things here that can be done without love.

And I think this is just an illustration to help us to understand that just about anything in the world can be done without love, even though it might look like love. So I think he's not listing everything here. He's just listing some things to help us understand this principle. Now we're going to itemize each one of them just to try to drive the point home. And I admit it's a very, very simple point.

Without love you ain't nothing. That's the point. And it's not something that requires much depth of understanding, thankfully. So first of all, there is eloquence without love. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal.

Now he uses this word love, though I speak with the tongue of men and angels but do not have love. Love is defined by this word that the Apostle Paul uses it's the word agape or agape however you want to pronounce it. It's a word that speaks of dearness to one another and having affection. It's used 124 times in the New Testament, but it indicates a genuine regard and appreciation for someone. It speaks of this feeling that came as a result of fellowship with God by the work of the Holy Spirit.

And Agape speaks of both feeling and doing, but it is not a slave to emotions. Agape rather is a fruit of the Holy Spirit. Your emotions might move around, But the big question is what's driving those emotions? And the way to set things right is to begin with fellowship with God. That's always the place to begin.

You can deal with the outward problems of your emotions. You might take drugs to deal with your emotions. You might drink something to take care of your emotions You might want to go get some counseling to take care of your emotions often these things are totally unprofitable Because they don't go to the part of the problem Because Agape love is something that is produced from God. You don't really get it through counseling or drugs. You don't get it there.

You don't get it through experiences and fun. You can't get it at the amusement park. It has to come from God. Now he says that if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and this could relate to the gift of tongues that the Apostle Paul has already addressed, you know, our view or my view is that the gift of tongues were human languages. They were languages that were spoken particularly in a narrative portion of Scripture in Acts chapter 2 where the gospel was heard in people's own languages.

You had people from all different language groups gathered together and they heard the gospel in their own language, people were actually speaking in a language they didn't even know. So if I'm able to speak with these foreign languages, he says of men and of angels. Angels, the word he uses here are sent ones or messengers. And he's speaking if I speak in the tongues of those who are sent, who have been verified and they're anointed, they are sent. And perhaps it has to do with the loftiness of their speech as well.

But he's speaking of eloquence of speech. Just last week Mike and I heard a man who displayed such eloquence and passion of speech and articulation. I sent a link to one of his sermons to you yesterday. But he had such a natural distinctiveness in his voice. He was very powerful.

He had a very natural giftedness in his speech. And my response was, wow. It was a very shallow response. Really well, I think it's appropriate to appreciate something like that. It is a shallow response because it doesn't recognize what the Apostle Paul is saying here that you can have eloquence without love and it ain't worth nothing.

All the eloquence in the world is nothing without love. You know there are stories about great preachers of the past. You know George Whitefield was so gifted in his oratory. There was a famous actor at that time named David Garrick and he said he would give a hundred guineas if he could only say, Oh, like Mr. Whitfield.

And Sarah Edwards writes to her brother after hearing Whitfield preach that he could move you to tears. He could make you tremble just by the intonations of his speech and just by pronouncing the word Mesopotamia he could bring you to tears but without love it's nothing It might move you to tears, but where did it come from really and what does it really do? And so in those days as it is today the silver-tongued are highly esteemed, great speakers. They always draw great crowds. Eloquence draws appreciation and here the Lord is telling us that eloquence without love is nothing.

And though you can speak with the tongue of Charles Spurgeon and George Whitefield without love, you're nothing. You're nothing. And then he says that it's like a sounding brass or a clanging cymbal and he's talking about two different kinds of instruments. One is the sounding brass is probably like a gong, a large brass disc that's curved and you strike it with some kind of a mallet and bong and it resonates you know the metal can be cast in such a way to really throw out the sound so he speaks of that and then he speaks of another instrument not so stately, not so elegant in its sound, but a tinkling, clanging symbol. He's talking about a very small instrument, probably worn on the thumb and the middle finger, and it makes a tinkling sound.

Dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee dee. You know, you have two very different sounds. They just don't go together. They're discordant. They're actually annoying.

So all of this eloquence without love is actually annoying. That's its final effect. And so he's speaking of this contrast. Now, he's just been speaking about the diversities of gifts and how there's the hand and the foot and the eye. They're all these different instruments that God uses.

And now he's saying, without love, these instruments are just clanging. And by the way, you are clanging. You're nothing but a clanger and you're annoying and I take it that it's annoyance to God often we're not insightful enough to know if something is annoying because we're not we don't have the discernment that God has as he peers into our hearts. But he says, I am nothing. Now, he uses the present tense of the Greek verb, which means it's ongoing and continuous.

It just keeps on going on that way as long as there's no love. So Paul personalizes it, so it has no meaning. It makes you nothing without love, without suffering long, without kindness, without all of these things that are defined in the later part of this passage. You are nothing without these things. And so then he moves to the gift of prophecy in the next phrase in verse 2, and though I have the gift of prophecy, There are three gifts that are listed here, prophecy, understanding mysteries, and knowledge.

They all have to do with discernment of some kind. Paul, in his writings, does distinguish between prophecy and knowledge, so I'm doing that here in the outline. But what was the gift of prophecy? Well, there are two elements to the gift of prophecy. There is foretelling that is predictive prophecy like Isaiah and Jeremiah and Ezekiel and Daniel who prophesied the coming of the Messiah in particular events.

Isaiah prophesying the coming of Cyrus over a hundred years before he showed up, naming his name and saying what he's going to do. That's predictive prophecy, That is foretelling. And God uses all kinds of instruments for this. He even used Balaam, who spoke the words of the coming Messiah, a wicked man. He will use even unprofitable instruments to declare his glory.

And then there's forth telling, and I take it that this is what he's talking about primarily, and that's the ability to see the events and the trends of the day and discern the meaning of them from the Word of God. You read the Word of God and you say, oh yes, now we see what's happening today. And it includes explaining Scripture. It can include proclaiming the gospel. It includes understanding current events and the implications of those events as a result of what the Bible has said.

So it concluded a grasp of these things. It's a person with remarkable insight. Paul talks about prophecy in chapter 14 verse 3. He says, but he who prophesies speaks edification and exhortation to comfort men. So you might find this remarkable gift of prophecy where someone can, when he speaks, he edifies and his exhortation is a comfort to men.

So that's what I believe he's talking about when he speaks of prophecy and it's also illustrated in Matthew 7 where men are saying, Lord have we not prophesied in your name, cast out demons in your name, perform many wonders in your name, and then the Lord says, I never knew you. Depart from me, you who practice lawlessness. So here you have someone who actually was effective in his prophetic ministry and stuff happened. I mean demons were cast out right real things happened but I think they're in this category of prophesying and yet you are nothing because there is no love." And what Paul has said about these gifts and these acts of sacrifice can be said for other things. For example, in the church.

A church, even with a particular strength, even with a compelling and beautiful quality, is nothing without love. Because you can put on qualities like you can put on a jacket and you can have a church with doctrinal correctness and the regulation of its worship by scripture but without love it is nothing. In fact, in Isaiah chapter 1, Isaiah speaks to the children of Israel and he's saying, oh yes, you've regulated your worship by the Word of God. You're doing everything I said, but it's noxious to me. Stop doing it.

Because there is no love, there's no love for God in it. And you can have a family which has embraced biblical practices, moral principles, But without love, you're nothing. I am nothing without love. Because you can put on outward appearances like a garment, but what's behind it? What's underneath it?

And it's true of a business or a hobby, you can have a prayer meeting, or you can have a feast, you can have a Memorial Day picnic and there's no love, and it's nothing, it's worth nothing. And it profits you nothing. Without the kindness and the long suffering. Without the bearing all things and believing all things and hoping all things and enduring all things. It's nothing.

And then the third thing that he identifies is mysteries, understanding mysteries without love. The word mysteries that he uses is a word that you'd recognize, musterion, right? Mysteries, that's where we get our word mystery. This is a combination, I believe, of intellect and inspiration. You've known people like this.

They are usually insightful and this is one aspect of Paul's use of this word. Things that have not been known before but revealed, they come in a flash of insight and wisdom. And God gives men this ability to have a flash of wisdom and insight. In many instances, this word is translated, that which was not known before. But that's not the only way that it's used.

Paul uses this word to speak of the truth of the gospel in 4.1 and in chapter 15 verse 51 in 1st Corinthians he uses it of the resurrection of the body and what he's saying is that you can be so insightful you can be so helpful and yet you are nothing if all of your insight doesn't have love in it and then he turns to knowledge knowledge without love in verse 3 and all knowledge now The Apostle Paul is most likely speaking about knowledge in the sense of intellectual prowess. It's an intellectual prowess that can apprehend biblical truth and it gives the understanding to see what has been revealed by God. You often find this in people who have remarkable memories and some even photographic memories and they can fit the categories together that other people cannot. But most of the world is not like this. But how important is it?

How important is that? Well without love it's utterly worthless. Utterly worthless. I don't mean to offend the really bright people here. I've found that in the Christian church there are so many people that are so bright.

I've heard of men who can read a book and they can recite the whole book to you. Well, most people aren't like that. And what the Apostle Paul is saying is don't overvalue that. There's something way, way more valuable than intellectual prowess. You know, I think it's possible that the rich young ruler was like this.

He came to the Lord Jesus and he said he was seeking eternal life. He had knowledge, he had lots of knowledge, but he had no love. He had kept all the commandments, he knew them, most likely had memorized them all, but he was nothing. Even though his morality was right in line with stated biblical morality. He was nothing.

He had nothing and all he did profited him nothing. And so you know you can have the most biblical church well thought out, carefully designed according to scripture, and be nothing. You can embrace sound doctrine and defend it to the death and it will be worth nothing. You can have in your church the most gifted people in the whole town and be worth nothing without love. It's interesting how God's economy is so different.

The first really are last. And he does use the profane of this world. He does use the foolishness of fools to confound the wisdom of the wise. He does it really by exalting love. Love that is kind, love that doesn't envy, love that suffers long, love that is not puffed up or rude, love that does not seek its own, love that is not provoked, love that thinks the best.

This is what he's saying, But you can have knowledge without love, and it's not worth anything. And then he turns to faith. Now you would think faith might be something of a different category. Wouldn't you think faith would have some value? And so he says, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains but have not love I am nothing now Jesus himself exalted faith he said if you have faith as a mustard seed you can move mountains so Jesus is not denigrating faith and the Apostle Paul isn't.

It's a certain kind of faith. To have faith is to believe, to have reliance in, to have confidence in, to trust in. Now, James says that faith without works is dead and it cannot exist alone. Something has to be mingled with faith or else it's worthless. One day Jesus was with his disciples on a road and they were walking by and they saw a fig tree but it was strange because the fig tree didn't have any fruit on it, it only had leaves.

And it shouldn't have been that way at that time. And so Jesus spoke to them and he said, I say to you, If you have faith and do not doubt, you will not only do what was done to the fig tree, but also if you say to this mountain, Be removed and cast into the sea, it will be done. And whatever things you ask in prayer, believing, you will receive." Well the Lord Jesus had just cursed that tree and it withered away. But faith without works is dead, and faith without love is nothing. Even faith.

Paul tells the Galatians that faith works through love. He said, for in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision avails anything, but faith working through love. How do you have faith without love? It's possible you saw it in the sons of thunder in John himself and the Apostles where they were calling down fire from heaven they had faith but they did not have love. Simon the sorcerer he saw faith but he did not have love and he was corrected for it.

But love is the underlying thing and he says I am nothing without faith And you think about how faith operates. Often it's faith that drives people to the mission field. It's faith that drives people out to go out and evangelize, pushes them out of their house to go to their neighbor. It might push them to different places, but a missionary or an evangelist with faith without love is unprofitable. Now, the Bible says that we bring truth and love, And there are many people here that go out to evangelize.

And the question should always be when you go out, what do I have? Do I just have faith Or do I have love? Most would say I have the truth. I know the truth and they can speak the truth, but do they have love? Often there are a lot of street preachers and personal evangelists that are out there and they got a lot of truth and they got a big method but they don't have much love.

And you become a heartless person. I think most of us would agree that we in our church need a lot more fire in our bones for the lost, a lot more love for the lost. I'm confident we do, I'm confident we haven't seen where we need to be in terms of seeking and saving the lost like the Lord Jesus has done. But if you just go out with truth, if you just go out with faith, you are nothing and it profits you nothing. And it probably hurts more than anything else.

It confuses and it enrages people when you go out without love. All of us should be missionaries with faith, with truth, but not without love. You leave love at home and it's all nothing. You ain't nothing and it ain't nothing. Leaving love home is a bad, bad news for everybody.

Without love I'm utterly worthless. And then he turns to generosity, and though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor." Now this is a figurative expression that really paints a picture. Now think of this picture. It's a picture of doling things out. You're doling things out by degrees.

It pictures doling a little bit here and then a little bit more and then a little bit more and it really does picture sort of a life of generosity that you keep doling it out. It's not a one-time gift it's recurring. Recurring gifts are always more blessed than one time, you know, at least to the receiver. But this picture is just recurring, doling it out. It's very reflective of people who tithe regularly.

They dole it out. Maybe they set aside a place in their house where they have things that they give away. I've got a place in my library, a whole bunch of books. I just want to give them away. Somebody walks in, they're going to be a victim.

I'm going to grab a book and give it to them. I just keep doling them out. So that's the picture that's there. It's repetitive giving piece by piece. But it's too easy to be impressed by that.

I mean even Bill Gates gives away billions of dollars. You know, There are people that really dole it out, but doling it out is nothing without love. And of course, in Matthew chapter 6, verse 1 and 2, Jesus spoke about how you should dole it out, not letting your left hand know what your right hand is doing and not sounding a trumpet. But a man might give away all that he has or part of what he has, he might give away all of his time. But without love, he's nothing.

You can have the best missions program and it can be worth nothing. You can have the best outreach and it can be worth nothing. You can go to the abortion clinic, you can go to a rest home, you can draw hundreds and maybe thousands of people and it's nothing without love. You can evangelize, you can street preach to your heart's content, and you can drive home your point and preach the gospel and get it right and you are nothing. And when you're driving back home, you know, from that place, you need to know that you're nothing.

We like to think well of ourselves because of what we do. We like to build our identity on what we do. And what we find here is such an expression of the love of God. What does God want to do with you? He wants to create in you a heart of love.

And there's nothing more valuable than that. You know, He came to make you a father who's a loving father. He came to make you a mother who's a loving mother, where everything you do as a mother arises out of the wellspring of the love of God that you're drawing from in your heart. He came to make you the most loving worker in your company. How many Christians are there in your company where you work?

How many people there have love in their heart? He came to make you a church member, a loving church member, so that what you do and what you say here in a church comes from a wellspring of love, because God is love. It's not just like putting on a coat because anybody can do that. Anybody can shine it up and say the right words, but without love, you're nothing. Love suffers long and is kind.

It doesn't envy. It doesn't parade itself. It's not puffed up. It doesn't behave rudely, it doesn't seek its own, it's not provoked, it thinks no evil, it doesn't rejoice in iniquity, it bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. And it never fails when it's from the Holy Spirit.

And then the seventh, self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice without love. And though I give my body to be burned but have not love, it profits me nothing. Now the word burned actually isn't in the text. The idea is to give your body and there are various ways that the body can be given over.

Paul did give up his body. He relinquished it to the Jews and the Romans. But this has to do with sort of the ultimate act of giving your body. You can be so afraid of pain that you might not give your body to be hurt in some way. But you can give your body and when you do that it will be known.

You might end up in Fox's Book of Martyrs. But without love you're nothing and it doesn't do you any good. He says it profits me nothing. Now this word profits sort of gives a new twist to Paul's teaching because in the past he's been saying you're nothing you, yes you personally are nothing as Paul actually said it I am nothing you know he starts with himself but here now he changes it and he says it profits you nothing And the whole idea that he's declaring here is that it doesn't make you successful in accomplishing your goal. It doesn't get you what you thought it was going to get you.

You are not successful in it. It doesn't profit you anything. It doesn't accomplish. And here's what we learn from this. Nothing is a success without love.

And everything is a success with love. How about that? Do you want to be successful? If love is not mingled with it, success will elude you before God. Now, in this celebrity culture, you might get some applause.

It might do you some good in this world, but it does you no good with God who is eternal and who has charge over your soul eternally. But It doesn't profit anything. So, you know, when we think of how we want to live our life and how we want to construct our outward life, we have to recognize what success truly is. We so mis-define success, but here the Apostle Paul says success is achieved by love. So there you have it.

Seven things that are worthless without love. Eloquence is worthless without love. The gift of prophecy is worthless without love. Understanding mysteries, knowledge, faith, generosity, self-sacrifice. All of these make you worthless if you do them without love, and they don't make you successful.

So there it is. Okay, let's apply this a little bit. First of all, now this is something that has been in my mind so much this week. What motivates you really? What motivates you Really?

Now what we've learned here is that lovelessness is a secret sin. Because you can do all kinds of stuff on the outside, but secretly It's different on the inside. So he's talking about the fact that you can have an outward appearance of love, but you really only love yourself. That's the problem. We do what we do so often because we love ourselves.

And it passes for love. Just like that coat passes because you put it on. Last night I read Psalm 90 to Deborah before we went to bed. Verse 8, you have set our iniquities before you, our secret sins in the light of your countenance. Secret sins of lovelessness.

On any category of your life, in your work, in your home, in your church, any category of life, check that secret sin of lovelessness. Do you do it just to serve and please yourself? Now what I think is so encouraging about this text is that it's something that you can start with right now. I mean immediately. Immediately you can move into embracing what's here.

You know in just a few minutes men will be given an opportunity to speak and they'll have an opportunity to clear the decks of their souls and say is what I want to say is it for love? Is it because I love these people? Does it come out of love for God? Where does it come from? So there's just an immediate application for us.

What We say when we have our time of continued teaching afterwards, don't speak your own mind, don't speak your own words. Speak out of the wellspring of the Holy Spirit. We want men who are filled with the Holy Spirit, not with some external agenda. We want them to speak words of love to this congregation. And then, you know, we're going to partake of the Lord's Supper with love.

And then, you know, tables and chairs are going to be arranged, rearranged in this room. And then we're going to have lunch together. And there's going to be all kinds of conversation. And the big question in our minds should be this, am I saying this out of love? Am I just trying to prove something?

Am I trying to be somebody or for something or make something happen that has nothing to do with the love of God? That's why we're instructed, let your words be seasoned with salt, words of love. Let's today try out of the wellspring of our heart to catch those loveless words before they come out, to renounce them before they come out. Now here's what's going to happen. Today there will be loveless things that will come out.

There will. But what I think the Apostle Paul would have us do is try to catch them as early as we can and repent of them and renounce them. Now here's the second application. The first was what motivates you really? That's the first question of application.

The second is this, what good are you to the community of believers? If love is everything and if love is the only thing that brings profit and success, then what good are you to the community of believers? And here's how we do good. We do good by loving. We do the things that God says are love.

And we can be doing all kinds of righteous things with or without love. So God's given us an opportunity to cry out for more love in our church here. Because here's what the apostle Paul has been saying over and over and over again seven times in these three verses, and that is that ordinary love is way more important than extraordinary gifts. Because giftedness without love is nothing. It doesn't matter how you can say Mesopotamia.

Without love it doesn't matter. I got this idea of a coat, putting on a coat from Jonathan Edwards in his book Charity and Its Fruits. He says that these outward appearances are like a beautiful garment that you put on and it doesn't change you. It doesn't change you, it just changes your appearance. And the third application is this.

And I want to direct this to those who are young, maybe very young. Those who are young, I want you to hear this. And maybe your parents can help explain this to you after the service. Build a foundation of love when you are young. Now when you're young, you don't know what your gifts are.

You don't really know how smart you are, you don't know how well speaking you are, you don't know whether you're going to be a good writer, you don't know whether you're good with mechanical things. You don't really know when you're really young. But pursue love because if you pursue love, whatever you turn out to be will be valuable. So pursue love now. The skills will come, But it's the love that matters.

It's the love that makes the skills worthwhile. Because without the love, all of your skillfulness, all of your dreams of what you want to be and what you want to accomplish are totally worthless. So learn how to love now before how to love now before you know who you really are. You know, God lays his glory Upon every person he makes in his image and his glory is there because of that and he's he has concentrated various gifts in you, but Until you know what they are Then lay a foundation of love love is the foundation and your life will be nothing without that foundation And it begins with your parents honor your father and mother You know loving your father and mother is the most pivotal thing that you can do to secure your success in the world. In fact, Paul says, it won't go well with you if you don't honor and obey your father and mother.

Why is that? It's because you don't have a foundation of love. You won't have success. It will profit you nothing. You will not have the success you want without a foundation of love.

So God gives you parents to help you to understand that you must love them and obey them. And if you can do that, you will be successful. Paul says that in Ephesians 6, 1 through 4. The greatest factor in your success is love. So if you want your life to count, Start with love.

Some of you have siblings and you hit, you fight, you contradict, you chastise one another, you don't love one another. You take one another's toys and you don't speak kindly to one another. You need to recognize what's happening to you. You are destroying your future success. Learn how to love your siblings that God gave you.

You didn't get to choose your siblings. God chose them to teach you what love is all about. And he actually might have ordained that you had a sibling that would bonk you on the head to teach you to love, to not return evil for evil. But learn how to love. That's the place.

Start young so that you'll be successful. Everybody wants to be successful, I know, but there's no greater success than that which is born of love and Then number four I mentioned this earlier. Do you evangelize without love? Evangelism without love is is such a disaster now We live in a time where people are attracted to these various formulas of evangelism. You know what I'm talking about.

They come in waves. You know, I've been around a long time. I've seen several of them come and they go. They do. They come and they go.

And they have value. They really do. I'm not here to denigrate them. But here's the big problem. People go out and they think that all they need is that formula and they are totally deceived because without love it's nothing.

Most people don't need to sharpen their tools. They need to grow their love. That's what they need the very most we just can't wait to give them the argument we can't wait to trap them with the law have you ever lied have you ever lost it ah you are a liar you are a lawbreaker you know you are a sinner repent well That is all so true. But where is the love? The work of a deacon without love is utterly worthless.

Your business without love is utterly worthless. Your work as an employee without love is utterly worthless. Prayers without love are worthless. Scripture reading without love are worthless. Recitations publicly without love are worthless.

Singing is worthless without love. And this is what distinguishes Christianity from all other religions. That's why Jesus said, this is the mark. My disciples will be marked by love. And that's why Moses said, these things shall be in your heart because it is love that distinguishes Christianity.

Now, what Paul is saying is that love is possible in a church, and it's possible in a father, and it's possible in a mother, and it's possible in a little child. Love is possible, that's what he's saying here. And you can recover love in your life. There is hope. There is hope for your loveless heart.

That's why we're being spoken to with these words here. And I love the way that Edwards spoke of it in Charity and its Fruits. He said, consider too that you are capable of this love and Christ is able and willing to bestow it. Multitudes have obtained it and been blessed in it. God is seeking your love and now are under unspeakable obligation to render it.

And then Edward speaks of something that was very contemporary to his moment because he wrote this in the middle of a revival that was taking place and it's why we should pray for revival. He said this, the Spirit of God has been poured out wonderfully here, multitudes have been converted, scarcely a family has been passed by, by love, By love. You are capable of this love. I'm capable of this love, but only by the power of the Holy Spirit of God. Moses in Psalm 90 speaks of this, I think so beautifully.

He says, let the beauty of the Lord our God be upon us and establish the work of our hands. Yes, establish the work of our hands. And I pray that there would be eloquence with love, prophecy, understanding mysteries and knowledge and faith and generosity and self-sacrifice, all with love. And that is a picture of the beauty of the Lord resting upon his people. That's why God has called us together is to be the display of his beauty through love.

Let's pray. Lord we we thank you for giving us such clear and simple words, not beyond any of us, to help us to recalibrate our thinking and our hearts toward love. Oh Lord, I pray that you would create a world of love here, true love the way that you've defined it, with all of its mercies and long sufferings. Oh Lord, with all of its truth, with all of its ways and all of its various contours and colors that you would establish your love. Amen.