The Corinthian Church thought they had reached perfection because of their spiritual gifts and knowledge. But the apostle Paul confronted them about their level of maturity.
What were they lacking? Today on Truth for Life, Alistair Begg identifies those shortcomings and points out the clear evidence of God's presence in a local church and in our lives. Paul, in writing the letter, makes it clear to them that they cannot claim to have a perfection which will only be theirs in heaven. And indeed, they must face the fact of their immaturity, and they must understand—and to this he comes now—what are the genuine marks of true Christian experience.
I think this may be quite a surprise to some of us tonight. Let me try then and summarize the paragraph under three simple headings. First of all, Paul says in this final paragraph—you check this for yourselves, you're sensible people—the gifts of the Spirit are not signs of final perfection. Secondly—and this is the part that I don't think comes out to many places, and we may be on thin ice, but you can judge for yourselves—I think that what is being said here, especially in verse 11, is this. While then we will experience perfection in terms of being absolutely free from the implications of sin, now we do not simply sit in babyhood.
But now, says Paul, is about maturity—a maturity which is not perfection. Because, he says, we only see in a mirror. One day we'll see face to face. Heaven is then, this is now. We live now. We let the Lord down now. We stumble now. We fall. We're not at our best.
The good we want to do we don't do. You can't have then now. We live now in anticipation of then. That's what he's saying here, you see, when he says, Now I know in part. Then I shall know fully, even now, as I am fully known. And just in passing, one of the keys to understanding your Christian life is working out the difference between now and then. We never grow to maturity in our Christian living until we understand what's now and what's then. Because if we start thinking that then is now, we won't be able to live now now.
You understand? And we'll be telling people that what's then is now and confusing them, because they can't get that now, and they aren't supposed to get it now, because it's only coming then. Right now we're known. We're fully known right now. That is a wonderful phrase.
You ought to underline that. I am fully known. By whom?
By God. Some of us are here tonight, and we're downright lonely. We may even be lonely in a big crowd. We may be away from our families, away from home, university.
We may have had changes in the circumstances of our lives, and they are buffeting us, and they are beating us. And here's a wonderful statement for your encouragement. I am fully known. One of the angels in heaven turns around to God, and he says, God, do you know John Smith? And God says, Do I know John Smith? Let me tell you about John Smith. The angel says, Do you know Mary Evans?
Ha! I can tell you all about Mary Evans. She is mine. She belongs to me.
I know her. Now, none of us know God like that. The whole quest for spiritual maturity in Paul's mind is that I may know him and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of his suffering, but he knows that even at his best knowing, it will be an imperfect knowing. But one day we shall know even as we are known.
All of the dumb questions that we've asked this past week will be answered in an instant when we gaze into his face. All of our uncertainties about pain and about illness and all of our heartache for our brethren will be answered in a moment when we know even as we are known. It calls for patience.
It calls for trust. It calls for biblical realism. One day we will see him, and we will be made like him.
You find the same emphasis. We picked it up in chapter 8 concerning knowing. He said, remember, about the food sacrificed to idols, we know that we all possess knowledge, and knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.
The man who thinks he knows something does not yet know as he ought to know, but the man who loves God is known by God. Jesus, he knows me. He knows my name. He knows where I sleep. He knows where I go. He knows where I've been. He knows me. The Creator of the universe knows me.
That is awesome! And the Corinthians were so stuck on playing their trumpets and banging their tambourines and playing with gifts as toys that they had lost sight of the really big things. Paul should have told them, you know, the main things are the plain things.
And the plain things are the main things. Now, you see, the smart aleck in the Corinthian church, or in any church for that matter, who has all the answers and all the gifts, does not necessarily in himself provide evidence that God is at work. That's what he's saying. The fact that you're a walking biblical compendium of knowledge doesn't mean you know God. The fact that I can preach or teach or do my thing, it doesn't mean I know God.
The fact that I could speak in ecstatic utterances would not be indication that I know God. So if I hang my hat on all of those things, I miss the point, because what does Paul say? There's only one real characteristic.
There is only one truly evidential sign, and the sign is love. That brings me to my third and final statement. The triad here in verse 13, these three facets or factors, provides for as the essence of genuine Christian experience. We said, first of all, that the gifts of the Spirit are not the signs of final perfection. Secondly, now, where we live, is about maturity that is not perfection, that's heaven. And thirdly, if we want to know what genuine Christian experience is, we need to go to verse 13. Now, let me try and use these remaining moments to drive this home with the help of God to our hearts and lives.
Listen carefully, won't you? Paul, in verse 13, is not describing natural qualities. Verse 13 is not a verse representative of the kind of man who finds it easy to believe. Nor is it indicative of the person who is naturally hopeful or of the individual who is warm and friendly. Because this little triad appears all over the place as well. You can find it in little books, when you're buying a book in the bookstore, and it pops out all over the place.
You can find it in Hallmark. Faith, hope, and love, and the greatest of these is love. And it has this dimension to it that may convince us that what is being described here is something that anybody can display at any moment in time and can opt into. The fact is, tonight, loved ones, there are non-Christian people who are quick to believe things, there are non-Christian people who are naturally optimistic, and there are non-Christian people who are as warm and friendly as anybody you ever might meet. But Paul's not addressing that in the thirteenth verse. He is describing here divine, distinctive, certain evidence of God's work in our lives. Indeed, verse 13 answers the question, What is a true Christian?
If you're uncertain about that tonight, hopefully it will be clear moments from now. This is, if you like, Paul's shorthand. He uses this little triad again and again in his letters.
Let me give to you two examples of it. If you turn over a few pages to Colossians chapter 1, you will find him referring to the exact same things. Colossians chapter 1. He thanks God the Father for the church in Colossae verse 4, because we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus.
Okay? Secondly, of the love you have for all the saints. And thirdly, of the hope in you of heaven that springs from that faith and love. When you go to 1 Thessalonians, you find the exact same thing. He blesses the Thessalonians, remembering them in prayer, verse 3 of chapter 1 of 1 Thessalonians, because, he says, I remember your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in the Lord Jesus Christ. So now we're at the very essence of Christian experience.
Now we're at the apex of spiritual maturity. Now we know what will characterize a genuine, spirit-filled assembly of God's people, irrespective of the dimensions of gifts that God chooses to give to them or to withhold from them. Notice that the faith is not simply somebody saying, I believe in God.
What the individual says who knows this faith—the converted, born-again Christian—is not saying, I believe in God, but my faith and my trust are in Jesus alone. I am not relying on external characteristics. I'm not relying on works of righteousness. I'm not relying on my baptism. I'm not relying on my attendance. I'm not relying on any of that. My faith has found a resting place, not in device or in creed.
I trust the ever-living one. His blood for me shall plead. I need no other sacrifice.
I need no other plea. It is enough that Jesus died and that he died for me. That is the faith to which he refers. It is the faith and trust implicitly in the Lord Jesus and in his atoning death. The love is also clearly designated.
Clarified again in Colossians 1. This is not a warm feeling in your tummy. There are plenty of churches that are warm-feeling tummy places. They are warmhearted, and they're cozy. They would give you coffee till the cows came home. They're very nice to you. They welcome you in the door.
They ask if they can help with anything during the week, and they are to be commended for their warmheartedness. But that is not the love to which he's referring. The love to which he refers here is a love for our fellow Christians. Remember, he describes earlier in 1 Corinthians, he says, you know, there'll be no homosexuals get to heaven, there'll be no idolaters, there'll be no idolaters, there'll be no lies, there'll be no thieves, there'll be none of these people. And you can imagine him writing it down and people reading and going, That's right, that's right, that's right!
And then he hits them from underneath the uppercut, he goes, And such were some of you. And they were, and we were. And some of you know this far better than someone like myself who's been reared and brought up in a Christian context, but some of you could stand up here right now and testify to the fact that you used to think that born-again Christians were the biggest freaks the world has ever seen. If ever there was a church to which you would not go, it would be one of those kind of churches. You would not hang around with those people at university. You avoided them like the plagues of Egypt. And now you sit with them. Now you talk to them.
Now you love them. Who did that? Jesus did that! See, this is genuine Christian experience—a faith that is in Christ and a love that is for those who love Christ. That's what worship is about. I was glad when they said to me, Let us go to the house of the Lord. No young boy or girl in their right mind says that.
You can't coerce your kids into that. They'd go, I'm gonna go to the city! Okay, fine, I understand that I've been there, but when the Spirit of God lights them up, they'll surprise themselves. Then the Bible becomes a living book, then praise becomes the expression of their hearts, then compassion becomes the reality of their life, and grace has filled their souls. That's when I'll know my children are saved.
Not when they walk an aisle, sign a pledge, make a statement. I'll know, because they will have a trust in Jesus and a love for God's people. Not a hundred percent love. May not even be much more than a forty percent or a thirty percent for a while. But it will be there. It will be somewhere there.
There will be a wee flame at least. Okay, and what of the hope? What of the hope?
These three remain faith, hope, and love. Well, this hope is an assurance of the life of the world to come. And unless the Holy Spirit is at work in a person's heart, they're devoid of any assurance of heaven. They cannot put their head on the pillow at night with any sense of certainty.
That if you should… What's that thing we teach our kids? As I lay me down to sleep, I pray thee, Lord, my soul to keep. And if I die before I wake, I pray thee, Lord, my soul to take. God bless my aunts and my uncles, my grandmother and everything. Amen.
Ka-chung! Gone. Comatose. Now, the natural man, secular man, cannot say that, mean it, and fall asleep, except that he pumps himself up with bravado. But when the Spirit of God changes a life, he engenders within that person faith in Jesus, love for the Jesus people, and an absolute assurance—not an assurance that removes anxiety but a deep-seated assurance that heaven is my home. So there's the test.
There's the test that all of us need to take tonight. If your personal trust and faith is in Jesus, and God has given you a love for those who love Jesus, and if you found in your heart a hope and an assurance of heaven, then I say to you, no matter how weak you are, how young you are, how shaky and sinful you might be, you have in your life the evidences of genuine Christian faith. These are the marks. These are the identifying signs that God is at work. These are most valuable and more important than all the spiritual gifts of God. These are the very stuff of Christian experience. Indeed, minus them, you're not a Christian. This is not God in a vacuum, God in the abstract. It is God at work, in and through the human heart, producing these things. Faith, hope, love.
Is that your life? The message of the gospel is, if it is not, it can be before ever you leave this building tonight. Well, it begs the final question. If faith, hope, and love are present and they remain, why is the greatest love?
I could give you that as your homework or extend this series by another week, which I daren't do. Let me try and say it as quickly as I can. Think about it, and I think the penny will drop for you fairly quickly. Why would love be the greatest? Does God have faith? Who does God believe in?
Nobody. He's God. He doesn't trust or have faith. Does God have hope? Does he say in heaven, my hope is pinned on this or on that or on something else?
No! God doesn't have hope in anything else, because he is the source of all our hopes. So God doesn't trust, and God doesn't hope. Can God love?
See, that's where the penny drops, right? God is love. That's why the greatest is love.
The Bible nowhere says God is faith or God is trust or God is hope, but it says God is love. And when God is working a new life in our lives, then there are wee shoots which begin to emerge in our lives, which our moms and dads will see and our friends will begin to identify. And suddenly, into the deadness of the winter of our prior spiritual experience, these green shoots begin to spring up, and one springs up, and it has a thing hanging on the end of it, and it says, Faith! And another one springs up, and it says, Hope!
And another one springs up, and it says, Love! And our friends say to us, I don't understand what happened to you. I mean, you're still a nice guy.
You still play golf with me. I mean, we still do business together, but these shoots—I don't understand these shoots. Well, then you've got a wonderful opportunity to tell them that the greatest thing that can happen to anyone in their life is to see these shoots emerge as a result of God's grace, and only one of them goes all the way into eternity. Faith and hope are a means to the end, which is love. But love lasts forever. That's why it's true when we sing, The greatest thing in all my life is loving you, knowing you. Because tonight he knows us, and one day we will know him. So the greatest thing for a church, for a life, is not the manifestation of spectacular gifts, but it is that the world might see something in us, no matter how tiny, that looks like God.
See, this is the great challenge. Now that people come and say, Whoa, this guy can talk! Or, Whoa, they can sing! Or, Oh, they do the big nursery thing! Or, Oh, they've got the children!
Because anybody can reproduce that. The real test is love. We can speak ecstatically. But if there's no sign in my life that God is at work, I'm making a noise. I may be highly effective as a preacher, I may have great knowledge and faith, but if there's not the least evidence of God's presence, I am nothing.
I may display radical self-sacrifice, but devoid of the fragrance of his presence, as far as God's concerned, it doesn't mean a thing at all. The Corinthians held up tongues, prophecy, and knowledge, all of which were means to an end. Paul directs their attention to faith, hope, and love. The heartbeat of our relationship with God is not in gifts we display but is in the fact that God knows us, and one day we shall know him. In response to the high regard which the Corinthians had for the spectacular, Paul tells them that the really important things are not tongues and the like, but faith, hope, and love, and there is nothing greater than love. So may God produce that love within my heart and yours, and in our church.
For his name's sake. Amen. Let us pray. And now unto him who is able to keep you from falling and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with great joy, to the only wise God our Savior be glory and majesty, dominion, and power. Tonight and forevermore.
Amen. Faith, hope, and love. The compelling evidence that God is, in fact, at work. This is Truth for Life and Alistair Begg with a message called Love Is Forever, and this concludes our series called Love in the Local Church. Today we've been reminded that there is nothing greater than love. Jesus told his disciples that true spirituality begins with loving God with all your heart. What does the Bible mean when it talks about our heart?
That's the topic of a book we are featuring today aptly titled With All Your Heart. In this book you'll learn that when the Bible talks about the heart it means the very core of our being, everything we think and feel and do. In fact, the author says the heart is the most important word in the Bible to describe who we are within.
As a matter of fact, the word heart is used more than a thousand times in Scripture. We love the unique perspective this book brings. It'll help you better understand yourself, your sin, and your Savior. We'll send you a copy of the book With All Your Heart when you make a donation and request it, or when you partner with us to help provide clear, relevant Bible teaching to men and women all around the world by becoming a monthly Truth Partner. The book is our way of saying thanks for your donation to support the Bible teaching you here on this program. Regular monthly giving by Truth Partners makes these daily programs possible. Truth Partners are listeners like you who are passionate about the difference God's Word makes in a heart and a life.
They support this ministry on an ongoing basis. When you join this vital team, your monthly financial support makes Alistair's Bible teaching possible free of charge for so many. You can sign up today at truthforlife.org slash donate or click the image you see on the app or call 888-588-7884. If it's easier for you to mail your donation along with your request for the book, write to Truth for Life at post office box 398000 Cleveland, Ohio.
The zip code is 44139. I'm Bob Lapine. Tomorrow Alistair brings us a special message that was originally delivered at a conference. It's titled, God's Patience. I hope you'll join us. The Bible teaching of Alistair Begg is furnished by Truth for Life, where the Learning is for Living.
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