Without Love We Are Nothing

Good morning, brothers and sisters. I was going to say everything that Eric just said, so I'm not going to say that now. So today I was invited here to preach. Thank you for the invite. But I wanted to preach to you on a passage out of the book of 1 Corinthians, 1 Corinthians chapter 13. So if you would, please pull out your Bible and put your finger on that passage for just a minute, because I want to read an account. of a martyr before we do that. When I was originally preparing this sermon, I was listening through a book called 2,000 Years of Christ Power by Nick Needham. I was in the early church era, and this account of this martyrdom kind of hit me with what was going on in the passage itself. So I don't exactly remember which emperor this was under, but I know it was under one of the more fierce persecutions.

So I want you to see in this passage, I want you to keep your eye out for three specific things. The first being where this woman, her name's Blandina, gets her strength from. It's not directly said, but it's implied. You can see it. Two, the love she demonstrates for her brothers and sisters around her and what is said about that. And third, the way her love for the others and her love for God, affects those around her, specifically those who are persecuting her. So with all of that in mind, please listen to the word of this book about the story of Blandina. It says, where he had always been a pillar and support. And Blandina, through whom Christ demonstrated that things which seem lowly and obscure and contemptible to men are of great glory with God. Through her love toward him revealed in power, not boasting in mere appearance. We all shuddered, and Blandina's earthly mistress, herself one of the martyrs, feared that on account of bodily weakness, she would be unable to make a bold confession.

Blandina was filled with such power that she was delivered and exalted above those who were torturing her by turns, from morning till evening in every way, so that they confessed that they were conquered and could do nothing more to her. They were amazed at her endurance because her whole body was mangled and broken. They declared that just one of these forms of torture was enough to destroy life. Let us loan so many and so great. sufferings. But the blessed woman, contending nobly, grew in strength by confessing her faith. She found comfort and rest and relief from the pain of her sufferings by exclaiming, I am a Christian and I do nothing vile. Blandina was then hung on a stake and exposed to wild beasts who were supposed to attack her. She appeared as though she were hanging on a cross. Because of her ardent prayers, she inspired the other combatants.

with great enthusiasm. They looked upon her and her ordeal, and they saw with their outward eyes in the shape of their sister, the one who was crucified for them, that they might convince those who believe in him that everyone who suffers for Christ's glory has fellowship forever with the living God. Since none of the wild beast at that time touched Blandina, she was taken down from the stake and thrown again into prison. preserved for another contest. On the last day of these contests, Blandina was again brought in together with Ponticus, a boy who was about 15 years old. Every day they had been brought in to see the sufferings of the others and had been pressured to swear by the pagan idols. But they stood steadfast and despised the idols so that the mob became furious and they had no compassion for the boy's youth nor any respect for the tender sex of the woman.

So they subjected them to all terrible sufferings and took them through the whole course of torture, repeatedly pressing them to swear by the idols, but to no avail. Ponticus was encouraged by his sister so that even the pagans could see that she was confirming his strength. After nobly enduring every torture, he gave up his spirit. But the blessed Blandina, last of all, having encouraged her children like a noble mother, sent them ahead into victory to the king. Herself suffered all their conflicts and hurried after them, exulting and rejoicing in her departure as if she were being carried to a marriage supper rather than being thrown to wild beast. After whipping her, giving her to the beast and burning her with hot irons, the authorities finally dropped her in a basket and threw her to a bull. The beast gored her again and again, but she was now indifferent to all that befell her.

because of her hope, her firm hold on all that her faith meant in her communion with Christ. Then she too was sacrificed. The pagans themselves admitted that they had never known a woman to suffer so much, so long. When I read that for the first time, I wanted to think, you know, I can't like or love these accounts because they're morbid, kind of disturbing at times, but nonetheless, I love the account of the martyrs because it shows their faith in God, but also it gives us encouragement to live like that. It shows this woman, who I didn't mention this, she was a slave girl, a young slave girl, shows how her faith and her love encouraged those around her, her brothers and sisters in the faith, But it also in one spot said that even those who were torturing were conquered. That faith, that love she had for God is subdued even them so that they were convinced. So I hope that kind of primed the pump for what the sermon will be talking about. So now you can pick up your finger that has been sitting there probably sore by now. And if you would, please stand for the reading of God's word. This is 1 Corinthians chapter 13 verses 1 through 7.

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become as a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, But do not have love, it profits me nothing. Love is patient, love is kind, and is not jealous. Love does not brag and is not arrogant, does not act unbecomingly. It does not seek its own, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered, does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth. It bears all things.

It believes all things, it hopes all things, and it endures all things. This is the word of the Lord. You may be seated. All right, so in doing any passage of Scripture, when you study through it, you've got to think about more than just the chapter itself. You've got to get the context around it. So in the broad context, you have the book of 1 Corinthians here, which is a book of Well, just about everything. Rebukes, exhortations, admirations. If you can think of something Paul would have got at, it is probably in this book. So that's the broad kind of context that's there. So we've got to look a little closer if it's that broad. So we've got to look right around it. So that draws us to chapter 12. In chapter 12, Paul is speaking about, in the beginning of the chapter, about spiritual...

The speaking in tongues, the miraculous healings, the prophecy, those kind of things. And you can kind of get, you know, wrapped up in that. I'm not going to right now. So we're going to move down from that. And he starts talking about the church. The church as a body. The church as arms and legs and hands and feet. And how the church cannot do without one or the other parts. If you think about it, the eyes cannot say to the hands, I have no need for you. Because now I can no longer pick up my notebook. The hands cannot say to the eyes, I have no need for you either because I can't see to pick up my notebook. So the church, the body is in need of each and every part. It is not separated. It is conjoined and working together. But what does that have to do with the spiritual gifts? Well, the spiritual gifts in that time, especially in Corinth, they were building themselves up against.

each other. Because some would have the gifts, some wouldn't have the gifts, some would have it to greater power, some not so much. And it was kind of like a fighting contest of who was going to win, who was going to be better, who was going to be greater. That ain't going to work for a church. For the church of Corinth, all it would have caused was divisions, factions, separation in the body. Paul says, no, that ain't going to work. So now we get into chapter 13, where he starts talking about love. I'm going to hit you with the last verse of chapter 12, the second half of it. Paul says, I show you a still more excellent way. At this point, he's speaking about this love, this love that without it, we are nothing. So that's kind of what the big point is here, that love is great. And on the flip side of that, in a sense, that we are nothing without it.

Here's what I want you to catch out of this sermon. Here's the big idea you could say. Since we are nothing without love, we need to know that love is more than just an act or a feeling, but it is a motivated desire to prefer one another over ourselves because God has loved us. Now, I know that's probably a mouthful to just memorize up there. So I'm not going to ask you to do that. Simply put, we must have an active love because God has actively loved and is loving us. This breaks down into four points of the sermon. The first being our love is rooted in covenant loyalty and the faithfulness of God. I'll show you how that fits in in just a moment. Point two, very simply, very plainly, we are nothing.

without love. Point three, I'm going to tell you what love actually is. And point four, practically knowing all of those things, how does that make us live in this world? How do we love our families? How do we love the church? And how do we love this world that is around us based out of our love for God? So we got to start with a foundation. We got to start with God's love. for us. Now, in studying this passage, this word love here is really cool because it can mean a couple of things different ways. So in this passage itself, it's talking about this love, this agape love being from man to man, woman to woman within the context of the church and those kinds of things, which is great. It is greatly exemplified in the Christian church to mean more than just You know, I love you, which is great. But this word agape love also gets used in reference from God to us. And what's cool about that word agape love from God to us is what it means, what its definition is. It goes like this. There's two little points here. It's the Septuagint, which is the Greek Old Testament, uses it.

for covenant loyalty, preparing the Jewish readers for the apostolic message. So today, and in Reformed circles and Reformed churches, we understand the idea of covenant theology and God working with his people from the beginning to the end through covenants. That's great. We understand that. But it would have meant a whole world of things more, in a sense. They would have even had more understanding to the Jewish readers at that time. That's kind of one aspect of it. But the other aspect of God's love to us, of this agape love, is that it is not contingent upon the worthiness of the recipient. It is a reflection of God's nature, which is love itself. It's not contingent upon our worthiness. And I want to show you that. I kind of want to work through the covenants a little bit. I want you to see, I want you to understand how long this covenant faithfulness has been going. I can say, you know, from the beginning, it has been this way. We all get that, you know, that kind of rings true in the mind. But let's just think in the terms of our lifespans. I'm 20 years old. I can't think much outside of that. You know, I'm kind of here. I can listen to the wisdom of others, but I am only my age. So I think back, you know, well, my grandpa.

That's a long time ago. My great-grandpa, well, that's an even longer time ago. I recently learned that my great-grandpa was born in 1899, if that gives you any idea of how long ago that actually was. Think about time that way. And now multiply that by, like, who knows how many generations. Think of how long God has been for his people. So we start back at the very, very, very beginning, before the world was created, before the foundation was laid. There was the Father, there was the Son, and there was the Holy Spirit. And they covenanted together to save for themselves a people, a people to call their own. It's before man fell. It's before sin entered the world. Think about that, before all of that. It really puts into perspective not dependent upon that worthiness when there's nobody there to be worthy.

So then we move forward a little bit. We've got that early covenant, a covenant made of redemption in the very beginning. We move to the covenant of works, one which was made with Adam and Eve based upon perfect personal obedience. We know how that goes because we are sinners. We by nature are sinners because Adam fell. It doesn't stop there though. It doesn't just keep spiraling out of control into more and more sin. No, right in the middle, of that fall right in the middle of the judgments god promises something and he gives us something that was mentioned in the westminster slides this morning i was kind of like this is great everything's lining up here talking about the covenant of grace this covenant that was made with a fallen man a sinful man one that had no worthiness in and of himself that god would one day send by the seed of the woman one who would crush the head of the serpent so that we may be saved. Then he continues this work. He doesn't just plant it there and let it run. No, he's got more covenants based inside of that, under that administration. You work from there, then you go to Noah, how he saved him and his family out of the flood. Just them, pulled them through. And then after them, you go from Noah to Abraham.

And the covenant made of the family, the descendants, the land, the being the people of God, it keeps going. God does not lose contact through this. He is not just setting off a top and letting it spin. We work from Abraham. Then we go to Moses. We look at that. We look at the Mosaic covenant and we think, man, that was the law. What good could there be in the law? Wasn't it just a curse? No, the law exposed our sin. The law exposed who we are, the sinful natures that we have so that we would run to God. God is faithful from before the beginning to Adam, to Noah, to Abraham, to Moses. And then we got David, the Davidic covenant that was made with him, that one of his descendants would be seated upon the throne forever. The son of David. That leads us up to the one that...

we would probably know more notably and that we currently live under. And that is the new covenant. The covenant in which Christ came. He fulfilled what we could not do. He came, he walked upon this earth blamelessly, flawlessly, perfectly. And he died a death upon a cross. That was a horrendous, atrocious death by the Romans. But even more so than that, when he was hung upon that cross and crucified, it was more than just the Romans persecuting him. It was the wrath of God being poured down upon him for our sins, for your sins and yours and yours and yours, all of yours, if you are in him. That faithfulness from all the way from the beginning, before what we can even comprehend, to then and to now and forevermore.

For all eternity. That is the covenant faithfulness of God. That is the love of God for us. Now with that foundation laid there, it's kind of like the bottom of the mountain to hold everything up. Because without that love, we cannot love. Without that love, we cannot even know what love is. So we're going to move a little step up in the triangle here. Our next step, I plan to really pound this down. on myself and on you so we can truly understand, and that is that we are nothing without love. That's point two. So I'm going to work through the passage here, starting in verse one. It says, if I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I've become as a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. In Reformed circles, Reformed churches, we look at the speaking.

in tongues of men and of angels. And we kind of look at that and be like, I do not speak in tongues. Got it. I can't be that noisy gong or clanging cymbal. Let's move on. And sure, you don't speak in the tongue of angels, but you do speak a very specific tongue, very specific one. It's the reason all of you can understand me right now. We speak in the tongue of English, the English language. Let me put it this way to you. If you speak in the tongue of English, just English, and have not love in your heart for those you are speaking to, then you have become as a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. This clanging cymbal analogy here, I think of, you got the band. If anybody's been in band, you know how this goes. For some reason, it's always the cymbal player.

You got the flutes going. You got the piccolo over here. The saxes are kind of rolling in the back. And then it's like the cymbal player just woke up. He sees the paper, right in the middle of the performance. Nobody knows why, but I've had it happen multiple times. That is you if you have not love. Just like that cymbal player. He's useless. All he's doing is disturbing the symphony. orchestra he's disturbing it and that is us if we have not love move down a little bit verse 2 says if I have the gift of prophecy and know all mysteries and all knowledge and if I have all faith so as to remove mountains but do not have love I am nothing it's gift of prophecy and has spoken of Think of it as teaching, being able to teach one another, even if you're the greatest teacher. But not only the greatest teacher, you have knowledge of all the mysteries. All the Nephilim, the Bigfoot, you've got it all. You've got it down. You have all that knowledge. And if you have read every book that is on your shelf, probably haven't, but even if you had, you would still be nothing without love.

Nothing. Think about that word, nothing. It's crazy. This last little part over here says, if I have all faith. Down in Jeffersonville, we go street preaching quite regularly. And it takes some faith at times. Went to a pride outreach not too long ago. And some of the things they'll say to you, some of the things they'll say about your family, some of the things they say they want to do to you, to your family, to your wife, to your children. It takes a lot of faith to go out there, okay? But even if we were to go stand toe-to-toe at the pride events, at the abortion mills, if we were to go stand toe-to-toe there without love, we are still nothing. Paul is not letting up here. You are still nothing, even if you've done all of those things. Even if, say, you always got the analogy of the gunman at the church.

He comes in, he puts everybody down on their knees and says, deny Christ or die. And I honestly believe most people within probably this church, and I know my own church probably would, they would say, I can do no other. Bang. That's how it goes down. Even if we were to do that, even if we were to die that kind of death, we would still be nothing. If I haven't driven this home enough for you, we've got another spot here. It says, if I give all my possessions to feed the poor. I was reading a commentary by Matthew Henry. And you look at this, give all my possessions to feed the poor. So think about it this way. You've got, you're going to say a charity fund and it's a food drive. You buy two grocery carts of ramen noodles because they're pretty good. And you give that to them. And you know, you wipe your hands of it, you walk away, you're done. That's not exactly what's going on here.

It's as if you take those two grocery carts, which is your full belongings, that's all you have, and you don't just take it all and drop it off. It's as if you go through the streets yourself, handing it out one noodle at a time, giving yourself away and all that you have. And it might take you forever to do that. Paul says, even if you were to do something like that, that you are still nothing, nothing. I don't know about you, but that's hard to hear. I just want to argue with Paul, like, man, can you not see what I've done? All the work I've put in, you're going to tell me I'm nothing if I have not love? That's hard to hear. But the great thing is, is that being in Christ, being saved, being a believer, being a child of God, we can have this love.

We don't have to be bogged down with you are nothing and you are nothing and you are nothing because in Christ, we can have this love because God has that love for us. So that moves down into verse four, which is down to point three now. What love is. I'm gonna kind of, I don't wanna do this. I wanna read you a definition of this agape love. It goes like this. It says, Agape love, derived from the Greek word agape, is considered the highest form of love, distinct from romantic love, eros, or brotherly friendship kind of love, philea. Unlike feelings based on attraction or obligation, agape is a deliberate choice and an expression of moral commitment, emphasizing action over emotion.

Simply, it is characterized by a selfishness, selflessness, patience, kindness, and enduring care, often exemplified in the willingness to sacrifice for others. That kind of love, the desiring kind of love. To not just look at each other and to think, you know, man, I really love Eric, or I really love my wife, which is a different kind of love. Or I love John here. It's not that kind of love. It is an act of love, seeking out what you can do for one another. My brother-in-law is going to firefighter school. So I had to give him a firefighter illustration on this kind of topic of love. So think about it. You've got the burning building that's standing out there. It's engulfed in flames. There's people screaming. You know you've got to get in there and do something. The guy just kind of, I love these people.

starts crying, starts bawling. He's leaning on the truck. Man, I love them so much, but yet won't take any action. He's legitimately heartbroken. You got to take that. He's not apathetic. He's genuinely heartbroken, but he doesn't take any action. Then you've got the guy who just jumps out of the truck over here. He's right beside him, throws on the mask and all that stuff, just goes in. And he gets in there and he sees a guy that, you know, kind of legs burn up. And he looks at him like, can't you just save yourself? I don't want to save you. i just got to do this because this is my job he goes from each room like this acting this way to everybody still picking them up and carrying them outside but as you can see neither of those really do very much good one actually got people out of the fire the other did nothing but one did nothing for the man who got them out of the fire he was still as nothing he had no love he had no love so we need is we need

Using the firefighter reference, we need firefighters who would combine the love that they have, this brokenheartedness to save others, and mingle it with the action, put them together, and desire to go in the fire to save others. Using a firefighter reference, but that does sound all too familiar. To go into the fire to save another. We need to desire that. So that love kind of based in there, an active, motivated desire to love one another, to do good for one another. Let's look at verse four. It says, love is patient, love is kind, and it's not jealous. Love does not brag, and it's not arrogant. Love is patient. Husbands, I have a question. You get off work, you drive home, you got your little...

Five-minute powwow in the car before you go in to recoup the day. You walk up to the door. I got a question. Is your mind thinking right then, I desire to be patient with my wife when she brings whatever she's brought through that door? Or with my children, when I walk in the door, is my mind thinking right then, I desire to be good to them when for some reason the other sibling has done something that is world-shattering? Do we desire that? Is that where our heart is? Wives, is that where your heart is? When your husband has come home from a long day of work, whether he's stressed or angry, or maybe it's just another day, do you desire to do good to him, to be pleasing to him? Is that what is resting here for you to do? Is that kind of love driving you to do good to your husband? There's a few more older children in this church than at mine. We have a bunch of little ones. So I get to ask you this question, you older.

Older children, younger men and women. There we go. We've got both categories. Do you desire the good of your siblings around you, but also your parents? Or do you desire to just get your way? It's very tempting to desire just to get your way and for people to just leave you alone. I get that. But you have to. Being a believer, being saved by Christ, you don't just have to. You get to. You get to love them and you get to desire their good for them. We as Christians can do that. The world has no clue what that is. Because the love of God for us and in us, we can do those things. Continue on. It does not act unbecomingly. We'll skip one line there. It does not, is not provoked, does not take into account a wrong suffered.

Does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. The line I skipped is pretty much the consensus of what love is. It does not seek its own. So I've spoke to husbands and fathers and wives and children, but now I want to address you as a church. In this church, in this congregation, are you seeking your own? Are you seeking, just like the church in Corinth, to build yourself up above the others? Is that where your heart is? Or is it to see the others built up, to do good to them? Do you desire to win? Say you got two guys who play guitar very well. Is your desire, when you know you play pretty much the same, to prefer the other one to have the position than you? Do you prefer to give that to them?

Is that in your heart, the goodness of another person, specifically with your brothers and sisters in the church? Because if we don't have that desire, that drive in us, churches crumble and fall apart because they are no longer a body. They are the hands saying to the eyes, I don't need you. They are the eyes saying to the hands, I have no need of you. So do you have that kind of love for your brothers and sisters? So now we've started in close. We started with the family. Then we went to the church. Now, the last thing that I wanted to mention in this love that we are to have, I didn't give you the point for this one, but this is point number four, is how do we love our families, our church, and our world? So I want to focus on the world now. And that's hard. It's just like I was saying earlier about the gay pride events. When you go there, it's hard to have that love in your heart.

You really do want to just be like, get rid of all of this and all of you. You're destroying this world. You're wicked. Is that what we are called to do? Is that what our hearts are called? To feel, to think, and to act upon? No. When we see the two gay men, we'll go back to there, walking side by side, holding hands, and mocking God, our desire should not be to see them. immediately just wiped out. Our first and foremost desire is for them to fall down before the Lord God Almighty and to repent, to turn from their sins, and to proclaim this glorious message, the message of the gospel, that even men like them can be saved. And you could think about the gays in that area, and then you could take it to, I think of like, Hopefully I don't get too hot topic here. The immigration in our country. Is our initial thought and action just to give them the boot? I'm not saying countries shouldn't have borders. I'm not saying countries shouldn't have boundaries. But what is our thought? What is our hope? What is our desire? Our desire should be to see them saved. Because that's what glorifies God. To have a desire in our hearts to love them. To preach the gospel to them and to not just look at them as if they're just some foreign entity.

That is just here. Think of that with Muslims, with Buddhists, with, honestly, anyone that is contrary to the Christian faith, anyone that harshly attacks the Christians. Our desire should not be to just see them wiped off the face of the earth. And if that be God's plan to wipe them out in the end, that's him. But for us, we should desire to see them saved. We should desire to preach the gospel, to have their hearts changed. The Holy Spirit would come and do its work so that they do even more work for the growth of the body than we ever could. That's heavy. We go from being nothing to working through what we're supposed to do, to how we're supposed to do it, to what our desires are supposed to be. You just cannot forget that you are able to do these things. Husbands, you are able to love your wife. You are able to get off of work.

and approach that door with patience. Wives, you are able to be patient with your husbands and to submit to them when it is hard. You are able to do that in Christ. You are able to look at the two gay men and seek their salvation. You don't have to be angry. You can have love in your heart because of the love God has for us. Because of that, we can do all of these things. We can act as saved Christians, believers. I was listening to this lecture series the other day. It was on the book of Revelation. Great book. The guy decided to try to get through the whole book in two lessons. He called it one lesson and then said part two on the second video. So go for it. But nonetheless, he got to a certain point in the book, and I can't remember where exactly he said.

Nonetheless, he gets at the idea as if Christ mounted up on his horse. He mounted up on his horse, girded the sword on his side, and rode off to the world. But behind him followed an army of saints, dressed in robes of white, girded with not a sword, not a gun, not a bazooka, not a tank, but with the word of God, armed with the word. so that the world may be saved. Is that your desire as a saint? Being a saint, do you desire to go to the world, to go to your family, to go to your church, to prefer them over yourself?