Love > Gifts

Today on Summit Life with J.D.

Greer. Apart from love, Paul says, every other religious act is empty. It is hollow. It is displeasing to God.

And it's just annoying to other people. And so just because you're religiously fervent and gifted on the outside doesn't mean you're spiritually healthy on the inside. Welcome back to Summit Life with J.D. Greer. As always, I'm your host, Molly Vidovitch. Today, Pastor J.D. talks about a topic that's as popular as it is misunderstood. And it's the topic of love. Our society seems smitten with notions of love, but at the same time, we certainly don't live in a fairy tale land of happily ever after. So what does real love look like? And once we recognize and understand it, how can we tangibly become more loving ourselves? A dive into 1 Corinthians 13 today shows us the most profound, powerful, and countercultural description of love ever written.

Remember, you can always reach out to us at jdgreer.com or give us a call at 866-335-5220. But for now, let's get into our teaching. Here's Pastor J.D. with a message titled, Love is Greater than Gifts.

1 Corinthians 13, if you got your Bible this morning, 1 Corinthians 13. Dietrich Bonhoeffer is a name you may have heard. He was a German pastor in the World War II era. He was a faithful man of God. He was also part of the German resistance against Adolf Hitler.

Ultimately, Bonhoeffer would be executed for his participation in a failed assassination attempt on Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. As the Nazis rose to power, Pastor Bonhoeffer discovered a small community in Germany that he believed represented the antithesis of Nazi ideology. The community's name was Bethel. Here's how Eric Metaxas in his book, Bonhoeffer, Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, and Spy, which if you haven't read, I would commend to you mightily.

Here's how we describe this community. Listen, Bethel was founded in 1867 as a Christian community for people with epilepsy. But by 1900, it had expanded to include several facilities to care for 1600 physically and mentally disabled persons. The founder's son expanded his dad's vision even further, turning Bethel into a community entirely for the disabled and the deprived. And by the 1930s, it was a whole town, a town with schools and churches and farms and factories and shops and housing for patients, nurses, and caregivers.

At the center of the town were numerous hospitals and care facilities, including orphanages to take care of orphans from all over the Nazi empire. Bonhoeffer saw Bethel as the antithesis of the Nazi worldview, the worldview that exalted power and honored only strength. It was the gospel, Metaxas says, made visible a fairytale landscape of grace where the physically and mentally disabled were cared for in a palpably Christian atmosphere. I love that phrase, a fairytale landscape of grace. This is the kind of community that the gospel creates, and you are going to see a description of it today in 1 Corinthians 13. What we are going to see today in 1 Corinthians 13 seems at the same time appealing to us and, to be quite frank, unrealistic.

Sure, all of us would love to be the kind of person that is described in 1 Corinthians 13. We would love to live in a fairytale landscape of grace, but that's kind of the problem, isn't it? It feels like a fairytale, but we live in the real world. We've got neighbors that we're fighting with. Some of you this morning have neighbors that you are in serious conflict with.

Our kids will not listen to us. If we want to succeed in our jobs, we feel like I can't be soft. I've got to have an edge. So if you read a chapter like this one and you think, this sounds sentimental, it sounds fairytale, you are not alone. I think that sometimes. But if you really understand what Paul is saying, I'm going to try to show you this today, sentimental is the last word that you would use to describe the love that Paul lays out in this chapter. Christian love, 1 Corinthians 13 is countercultural, and it's often straight up confrontational. 1 Corinthians 13 might be one of the most famous chapters in the Bible, the great love chapter. Some of you had this read at your wedding. It was etched in cross stitch above our kitchen table in the home that I grew up in. And that's fine.

That's totally fine. Just remember that the immediate context of this chapter is love in the church, particularly in how we use our spiritual gifts with one another. You see, there was a problem in Corinth that Paul was trying to correct.

We saw it last week. And that is the Corinthians were using their spiritual gifts for show instead of service. They should have been using those gifts to bless, but instead they were using them to boast.

They believe that their spiritual gifts set them apart from others, apart from others, and made them spiritually superior to others. Paul wants to show them that unless these amazing gifts are driven by love, they're worthless to God and annoying to the church. Love is everything in the Christian life.

Now, let me be clear. You can apply the principles that Paul gives here to any relationship, any relationship, romance, family, friendship, your neighbors. Just don't forget that the most immediate context for this chapter is love in the church. In fact, just to prove that, let's start at the end of chapter 12. Remember chapter breaks were not in the original writing. It was just a letter. And sometimes we put chapter breaks in the wrong places. And this is one of those situations.

All right. So we're just going to read this together. Let's go back to verse 29 and see how Paul gets into this chapter. First Corinthians 12 29. Is everybody an apostle? Are all prophets?

Are all teachers? Do all work miracles? Do all possess gifts of healing? Do all speak with tongues? Do all interpret those tongues? A set of rhetorical questions. The obvious answer is no, but you, he said, you should earnestly desire the higher gifts, the better gifts. That is the ones that will enable you to better serve and lift up others.

But you know what? Paul says, let me, I just need to show you a more excellent way. Now chapter 13, verse one. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or clanging symbol. And if I have prophetic powers and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I had all faith so that I could just remove mountains, but I had not love, I am nothing. If I give away all that I have and I deliver up my own body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. Number one, if you're taking notes, it is possible, Paul says, to do super religious stuff with selfish motivations. It's possible to do super religious stuff with selfish motivations.

I mean, let's just look at that list. It's pretty impressive, is it not? If I speak with the tongues of men and angels, that means you're at the pinnacle of the spectacular spiritual gifts. Bottom line, angel shows up here today and you start conversing with him or her in its native tongue, you're varsity squad.

Let's just go ahead and acknowledge that, right? If I got great prophetic powers, in other words, I can perceive exactly what the Spirit of God wants to say in a situation. And frequently God uses me to speak directly to other people. And people are always saying to me, man, how do you know?

How do you know what's going on in my life? Every time you speak, God uses you to speak right to me every single time. Paul says, if I understand all mysteries and all knowledge, whatever you want to talk about, Calvinism, the Trinity, when Jesus is coming back, how many angels can dance on the head of a pan, why cats are a personification of Satan, you name it, you name it, I can explain it to you from the scriptures.

If I could have all faith so that I could just remove mountains, man, I speak and mountains disappear. I got that gift of faith that we talked about last week, where I can perceive exactly what God wants to do. And I have the urging to ask Him for it. When I ask Him for it, He does it because I perceived it from Him. Paul says, I don't even have a little bit of that gift.

I got all of it. If I deliver up my body to be burned, I mean, talk about radical generosity. You can't get more radically sacrificial than that.

The offering plate comes by and other people are writing out checks and you strike a match and set yourself on fire. Paul's talking about somebody obviously who gives away everything for the gospel, their 401k, their house, even their very lives. And yet Paul says, verse three, even if all those things are true of me, but I had not love, I gained nothing. Love is everything in the Christian life, everything. Jesus in fact said you could reduce everything else in the Christian teaching down to just two commands, what we call the great commandments. Love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, and mind, and love your neighbor as yourself. And if you do these two things, He says, everything else in the Christian life will come naturally.

The reverse of that is also true, by the way. If you do everything else in the Christian life without those, you're nothing. You say, well, why in the world would anybody do those things if it wasn't driven by love for God?

Great question. I'll tell you why I do them sometimes that have nothing to do with love for God. How about love of praise? What you're really after is the affirmation and admiration of others and doing religious things is how you obtain that. You used to obtain that praise by being good at sports or succeeding at work or doing something that oppressed other people. Now you just use religion for that same thing.

That seems to be what's going on with the Corinthians. God was not so much beautiful to them as someone they desired to worship as He was useful to them. You say, what's the difference between something being beautiful and useful? Well, when something's useful, it's a helpful tool to obtain something else.

You may be fervently devoted to it, but only because it's a means to what you really want. Imagine a man who courts a woman because he learns that she is the heiress to a great fortune. He's not really interested in her at all. In fact, she bores him. She's just a means to what he really wants, and that is her money. He might be very devoted to her.

He might be a model boyfriend in every way, but his devotion has nothing to do with her, only what she can give to him. See, there are a lot of people who serve God devotedly, but only because He is useful as a means to other things, like a good marriage. I know if I put God at the center, He'll actually help me get a good marriage. Or maybe it's escaping hell and entering heaven. Yeah, I have no interest in God, but I don't want to go to hell. I'd like to go to heaven, and so God's a means to that.

Maybe it's prosperity or some other blessing. You might want those things badly enough that you discipline yourself to live like a great Christian. But your devotion has nothing to do with love and desire for God. It's love for those other things that drives you, and God's just a convenient means to that end. So it might be love of praise or desire to earn some other blessing that's motivating you.

You're listening to Summit Life with J.D. Greer, and we'll return to today's teaching in just a moment. But first, I'd like to share a bit about our featured resource this month. It's called Cutting Through the Noise, 14 Five-Minute Studies in First Corinthians. And this study guide is the perfect tool for those that are wanting to deepen their walk with God. Designed for the person on the go, it takes solid biblical truth and delivers it in easy-to-digest chunks, making the application tangible and easy to achieve. Maybe you have a group of friends looking for answers or your small group is in search of a way to grow together. This resource might just be the perfect companion for a journey with those that you love. Take what we're learning here on the program and apply it personally to your own life. It's yours when you support this ministry with your generous gift today.

Call 866-335-5220 or visit jdgreer.com today. It might be that being good is how you think you'll earn heaven. My mother-in-law jokes about how a lot of older people in their final years get really, really sweet, right? Even though they were mean as snakes when they were younger. They get sweet, obviously, because they're concerned about heaven.

But she realizes, and you realize, of course, that any good works that are done in order to earn something from God are, by definition, selfish, inherently selfish. Charles Spurgeon tells a story that I love to use to illustrate this point. It's the story of a carrot farmer who shows up in the court of an ancient English king with a huge carrot that he's harvested on his farm. Biggest carrot the king has ever seen.

The farmer said, King, when I harvested this carrot, I knew it was deserving only for a king, so I am bringing it to you to honor you, to express my appreciation for you. You have led us well. You have led us justly under your leadership. We have prospered. I have been protected. I am your devoted servant. As Spurgeon tells the story, the king was moved by this act of gratitude.

And he said, you know what? I happen to own all the land around your little farm, and I am your devoted servant. I am your devoted servant.

I am your devoted servant. You have been given 300 acres in your little farm, and I am going to give you 300 more acres in your farm. Well, man, one of the king's noblemen who was standing there in the court thought, wow, if the king would give 300 acres in response to a carrot, imagine what he would give in response to a real gift, like a horse. So that night, he goes out and he finds the finest horse in all of England, and he trots him into the king's court the next day and says, I knew it was deserving only of a king. I want to give it to you from your humble servant. The king who was very wise and shrewd knew that the nobleman was giving the horse to him only in order to get something from him, and said to this nobleman yesterday, the carrot farmer was giving the carrot to me. Today, you are giving the horse to yourself.

Friend, listen to me. Every religion in the world, except for the gospel of Jesus Christ, every religion in the world teaches that whether God accepts you into heaven or not is based on your good works, and that produces some fervent adherence to their religion. Some of the most religiously devoted people I have ever been around who obeyed all the rules and would put a lot of us to shame were my Muslim friends.

But if you ask them why they were so fervent, it was because they were scared of hell, and the five pillars of Islam are the only way to escape judgment. When you do good works to earn anything from God, the good works are inherently selfish. You're not serving God because he's beautiful, and you desire him, you're serving him because he's useful. That's what was happening with these Corinthians. Their motivation in their spiritual gifts was to set themselves above others.

And Paul says that is inherently selfish and makes you nothing in God's eyes. Verse three. He says, and then he starts to sound like a noisy gong or a clanging symbol to other people. Right on cue.

There he is. By the way, when Paul uses the example of symbols, it's likely that he was thinking of the temples of Sibelion and Dionysus. Right there in Corinth, they had temples to these gods because worship in those temples involved banging on gongs and symbols to try and get to God's attention. And Paul was saying to the Corinthians at the end of the day, your religious devotion is just paganism dressed up in Christian clothes.

And beyond that, it's just annoying. Am I right? Am I right? But you're gonna have to listen to this for the rest of the message.

No, I'm kidding. You're not gonna have to listen to that. Now, listen, if you've ever been to the symphony, you know that symbols can be a beautiful part of an orchestra. But what makes a symphony a symphony is that every instrument is pursuing one united sound. They've all surrendered their individual sounds to blend into one beautiful single sound. In fact, that's what the word symphony means.

Sem means literally same. Phone means sound. You don't want some guy over in the corner banging on his cowbell trying to draw attention to himself.

Right? All these things, these instruments aren't supposed to be identified individually. They create one united sound. It's the same way in acting, by the way. All the actors surrender their individual parts to the whole. This story will not surprise some of you, but I was part of a drama group in college, and we were doing a comedy, and I played this really dumb guy in one of the plays. And I really mastered the character, right? In fact, I did that method acting with that all the time. It wasn't hard.

It came really naturally. And the role of my character was to make people laugh. And I thought I was doing a great job. Every time I walked on stage, people were laughing. But the director pulled me aside, and he said, stop making everybody laugh when the scene is not about you. You see, we'd be on stage, and all the action would be over here, but I'm over there on this side. It's supposed to be in the background, but I'm doing stuff to divert people's attention to me.

I was getting the laughs, but the overall quality of the play was going down. It doesn't help unless what you're doing as an individual is surrendered to the good of the whole, because it's not about you. It's about them. Apart from love, Paul says, every other religious act is empty.

It is hollow. It is displeasing to God, and it's just annoying to other people. And so just because you're religiously fervent and gifted on the outside doesn't mean you're spiritually healthy on the inside.

You tracking with this? Because see, this is what the Corinthians were. They were religiously impressive on the outside, but full of selfish immaturity on the inside. There's a medical term that I've heard called totofoti. It means thin on the outside, fat on the inside. Maybe it's not an official medical term, but it should be. And it refers to that cursed group of people who can eat cheesecake all day long and still look great.

I mean, don't you just hate those people? But see, the problem is their weight can be deceptive, because people assume that thin means healthy. Sometimes doctors, they say even miss heart issues and other things because they look healthy on the outside.

But in truth, though they look great on the outside, their insides are clogged up with all the effects of unhealthy eating. Corinth's worship services look fit. They had intense worship, miraculous signs, gifted leaders and preachers, but only on the outside. Inside, if you look past their service and their giftedness and into their hearts, you would find that their hearts were clogged with selfishness. So what does real love look like? What does actual love and practice look like? In verses four through seven, Paul's gonna give you a 15-part description of love. If you ever think, I got too many points in my sermon. Paul has 15 points in four verses. Now, again, you can apply them to any relationship, but specifically Paul is thinking about relationships in the church. So as I walk through these, I want you to think not just of your spouse or of your future marriage partner or your kids. I want you to think of some friend in the church because that's the better application and how you're doing in those level of relationships.

You can apply it to marriage, yes, but make sure you don't lose the context, the church. Verse four, Paul said, love is patient and kind. Patience means that you expect others not to be perfect.

You're okay with that. You don't need them to be perfect. One of the things the Holy Spirit has been recently dealing with me about is how little patience I have for others' dysfunction and how much patience I expect God and others to have for my own. I'll think about somebody else's weakness or their dysfunction and just, I mean, to be quite honest with you, despise them for it. But I realized I got way more problems in God's eyes than they do in mine.

And I asked myself, what if God accepted me like I'm accepting them? Love is patient. Love is kind.

Kind here really means in Greek considerate. It means that love considers others' needs instinctively. It's not just happy when it's okay. It's concerned about you being okay too and can't be happy until you're happy.

Naturally, we consider ourselves. Love considers the happiness of others also. It can't rest when they're unhappy. Love does not envy or boast. To not envy means that you rejoice in somebody else's blessings, get this, even when you aren't experiencing that blessing and you really want to. What happens to you in your heart when that person gets the house that you always wanted or that promotion or that boyfriend? Or how about when their ministry or business grows and yours doesn't? Parents, what is your attitude when somebody else's kids are doing well and yours aren't? I mean, it's fine to be sad about your kids, of course, but are you envious of them?

Do you despise their blessing secretly, wishing that their kids would struggle too? Love is not like that. Love rejoices in others' blessings, even when you aren't experiencing them.

How about when somebody else gets honor or recognition while you are being overlooked? Love delights in the happiness of others, even when you are unhappy. Love, Paul continues, is not arrogant. I mean, arrogant just means always thinking about itself, preeminently, always focused on its rights and its entitlements and what it thinks it's deserved, believing that you deserve the best.

You deserve blessings and you're irritated when other people are not delivering them to you. Love is not rude, verse five. Some scholars translate rude as dishonoring, and I think that's probably more of what Paul had in mind. Love doesn't dishonor a person by treating them like a commodity for the fulfillment of your needs. That's what Paul's saying. Evaluating somebody else by how well they fit into your little scheme of what you think you need in life, emotionally, sexually, or whatever, like cogs in the machine of your happiness. Paul puts those two together back to back, and by the way, arrogant and rude, because he's saying that a person of love doesn't approach life as if life is all about them and it's everybody else's purpose in life to provide happiness for them. Are you getting a clearer picture of what true love looks like? You're listening to Summit Life with Pastor J.D.

Greer. Over the past few weeks, we've been diving into this teaching series called Cutting Through the Noise. And J.D., some folks might be joining us a little late, so can you tell us what this series is all about?

Great question. Life feels overwhelming, feels like noise, feels confusing, chaotic, loud. And everywhere you turn, there's a voice calling to you saying, Hey, this is what I need from you.

This is what you need to do. This is what will really make your life complete. I think a lot of us in a world like we live in with constant digital distraction are saying, is there a way out of all this? Is there a way to cut through the noise and the distraction? What Paul shows them is that the gospel cuts through the noise that will give them a compass that will guide them to the peace and confidence in life that they yearn for.

Yeah. He's writing to people in the first century. They have different issues than we have in the 21st century.

But what you'll see is that fundamentally these issues are really the same. And so what we want to do is help you as you are studying First Corinthians to cut through the noise of your life and to be able to have that same confidence that Paul was trying to give the Corinthians. What we've done is we've created this little 14-part Bible study. Molly, I don't know about you, but I love things that are five minutes. And I could just say, okay, I got it.

And then move forward. We'd love for you to reserve your copy right now. Just go to jdgrier.com. We would love to send you this month's featured resource, Cutting Through the Noise, 14 five-minute studies in First Corinthians as our thank you for supporting this ministry.

Nothing we do would be possible without the support of our faithful givers. So join with us today. Call 866-335-5220. That's 866-335-5220. Or visit jdgrier.com today. I'm Molly Vidovitch reminding you to join us next time for the conclusion of today's teaching right here on Summit Life with J.D. Greer. Today's program was produced and sponsored by J.D. Greer Ministries.