Agape Love: The Eternal Language of Faith

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And so we can recognize the same things in Corinth in our lives today. So I just wanted to bring that forward for us. And if you're still saying like, I don't see that in myself, I don't have prophecy, I don't have tongues, I don't put that much time into knowledge, you still operate in these three sometimes, I'm going to be honest. So I wrote this down. You may not operate in prophecy per se, but you might pride yourselves on always having a word for others. You have opinions and you try to couch them as best you can in what you believe to be Christian or biblical support. You may not speak in tongues, but you may be fluent, like you have a few go -to verses that you like to lay on people at the right time to demonstrate you know them and also to let them know they don't. You may not be a theological scholar, but maybe you're the person who's always right in every biblical argument. You are absolutely sure you are the only person who knows the exact number of angels that can dance on the head of a pin. And you are strident and absolute and black and white about all of these things. [00:13:31] (70 seconds)  #TemporaryVsEternalLove

So interesting, potentially impressive, but what Paul says is these things are going to what? They're all going to cease. They're all going to be stilled. They're all going to pass away. They're all going to disappear on that day when we come face to face with God. They are not going to matter. The only thing that's not going to fail, the only thing that's not going to pass away, the only thing that's going to persist and endure is love. What kind of love? Agape, God -like, selfless, sacrificial, others' action -oriented love is the language of heaven and is the thing that passes through while all these other things, while good, are temporary, while useful for a time, are no longer useful in eternity. [00:14:41] (54 seconds)  #PartialBlurryImmatureTruth

And not only does he believe they're partial, he believes they're immature. Sure. and they're blurry so the gifting that we have the prophecy the tongues the knowledge the spiritual insight the biblical eloquence and all the other things are not only temporary they're partial they're immature and they're blurry he says that in the next three verses so as we unpack each of the next three verses paul says these things the same he says them differently but says the same thing three times in a row like we need to get this we need to hear this you don't repeat yourself three times in a row in the bible if you're not trying to make a point and he kind of comes at it from three different angles so that in case you missed it one way you might get it the other and reinforce it another so we got to dig into this because he built it that way you can't get to the other side without going through these three verses [00:17:40] (57 seconds)  #ChildlikeFaithJourney

And he's like, you know, it's basically a blurry reflection and a reflection not on God, but it's just a reflection of yourself. It's like an echo chamber here when we look into a mirror. And not only that, we just don't even see ourselves clearly. And as a result, how can we see everyone else clearly when we don't even see ourselves clearly? And he's like, it is a dim, blurry, foggy mirror that we look in. And at best we see just a dim reflection of ourselves, not of the totality of God. God has the clear picture. But we come in with all these convictions and all this confidence that we see it exactly right. Everybody else is wrong. This is the answer. That's wrong. And I'm telling you, it's partial, it's blurry, and it's immature. And we have to be careful and handle this with respect for others, but also recognizing that God is going to reveal all and God is going to accomplish all. And part of that is we have to let him do his thing. [00:24:51] (65 seconds)  #JudgmentRevealsTrueLove

So I said, we don't want to confuse our partial view as a complete view, because the complete view, Paul says, is still coming. And all of this stuff that we traffic in that is partial, blurry, and immature is going to disappear, pass away, cease, and be stilled. But what remains? [00:25:56] (25 seconds)  #ActionsOverWords

This is shocking in a way because these aren't the atheists, the secularists, or the other people we think he would be talking to or the ones we are talking to. He's talking to those who are calling him Lord, Lord, and who are articulating their fluency in religious activity, hoping that that's gonna count. And Jesus is saying, I don't know you. And so the question becomes, fluency in the language and fluency for heaven, what does that really sound like? [00:30:25] (36 seconds)  #ChooseCompassionForgiveness

What it shows me is that when God scans our soul on the day that that happens, he's looking for the sacrificial, selfless, action, others -oriented love of our lives. How do I know this? Because Jesus talks about it again. Like we have the benefit of Jesus talking about the day of judgment from Jesus who is the judge on that day, so we need to take it seriously in Matthew 25. Matthew 25, he says, when he's separating the sheep from the goats, he basically says to one group, whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me. So come and enjoy your rest. Then he looks at the other group and says, whatever you didn't do for one of the least of these, you didn't do for me. You're starting to feel the vibe there? [00:31:59] (50 seconds)  #EndShapesPresentLove

And when we hear that the other things are dismissed, and this is all that lasts, I have to admit, I had a very sobering thought. That sobering thought was, here I stand, up here, sharing knowledge, hopefully some biblical insights, and articulating, hopefully somewhat eloquently, the word of God, and it's all gonna cease. It's all gonna disappear. It's all blah, blah, blah. This matters for a moment, but it's gonna cease and disappear at the moment of judgment. You're like, oh, it's gonna cease and disappear before I leave the parking lot. But it's sobering. I gotta be honest. I put a lot of time into this because it seems important. Like, I'm up here on front on a stage, and you're sitting there just looking at me and going, okay. Like, it seems like this is valuable and important. And it may be, and it is for a moment, but it is not the thing that's gonna put me in relationship with God for the rest of eternity. It doesn't make me know God or be known to God as much as I try to know the word. [00:33:45] (68 seconds)  #VanityVsEternalLove

Is it in the things that are gonna pass away? Or is it in the things that are going to never fail? So I challenged myself. I'm like, oh, I can't just preach this sermon. I'm like, what is it I should do? And I found this verse, and it's Colossians 3, 12 through 14. It says, therefore, as God's chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. Bear with each other, forgive one another. If any of you have a grievance against someone, all?ain?te semen is no matter, who has faith in you. societies most create aforgive as the Lord forgave you. And the key here, over all of these virtues, put on agape love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. I'm like, yes, it's great that I can preach a sermon, but that's going to disappear. This is how my life needs to live. But you know what the ironic part of it was? I wrote those words down so I could say them to you. That didn't mean I did them. And I feel that happens in our lives sometimes. We think a thought and we think we did it. We talk about doing it, but we don't do it. You have to do it. [00:35:00] (72 seconds)  #DeathTeachesLifeAndLove

Let me end with three questions what are you going to change if you would start believing every day knowing you're going to die and just reckoning with that and what would change now that you know only love will never fail in the form of agape as we've talked about it today it's the language of heaven where you will know god and be known to god and are you fluent are you becoming fluent is every day a practice in becoming fluent for what you will be doing for the rest of eternity. [00:42:42] (37 seconds)

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