1 Corinthians: "Charity (love)"

There were questions that were submitted last night that didn't get to me until after the meeting so I am going to take just a few minutes to cover a couple of questions. A couple of them are what we call red-button issues, so I almost wish I hadn't gotten them. But we have them, about four questions, and I will try to answer them briefly and scripturally and move on from there.

Two of them are in 1 Corinthians 11, so we might as well turn there and look at what is being asked. The first one was questioning the issue of, I was wondering why hair was never mentioned when going over headship and submission in chapter 11. Good question, and let me try to answer it.

Let's turn to 1 Corinthians 11 and look at verse number 14. Doth not even nature itself teach you that if a man have long hair, it is a shame to him? But if a woman have long hair, it is a glory to her, for her hair, her long hair, is given her for a covering. But if any seem to be contentious, we have no such customs, neither no such custom, neither the churches of God.

So where in this chapter does the issue of hair come in? Let me try to separate, if I can, two things. Two different orders that the Spirit of God through Paul is taking up here. There is the natural order, and there is the redemptive order.

In the natural or creatorial order, he says in verse 14, and you'll have to just allow me to say that it can be translated this way, does not even the natural order teach you? So what he is saying is that in the natural order of creation, man is head, and the woman is given the place of submission, and that submission in the natural order is expressed in her long hair. So a woman's long hair is her willingness to be submissive in God's natural order, the creatorial order, which he touches on earlier in the chapter, male and female, is her expression of submission in the natural order. That is why he says it is her glory.

What is glory? Glory is expressed excellence, displayed excellence. So in what sense then is a woman's hair her glory? She willingly takes the place that God has given her. That is what glory is all about.

It is taking the place God has given you and displaying it. So a woman, by taking her place, and if I can use what the world would call a woman by going down, by stooping to take the place of submission, is really going up. She's really expressing her greatest glory by taking God's place in creation in her long hair.

Now, redemptive order adds something to this. When the assembly is gathered together now, it is not her hair she is covering. It doesn't say that in the passage.

Her head is being covered because it is not a matter that she is covering her glory. She is covering the man. She is his glory, and so she is covering her head so that man's glory is not displayed.

The only glory displayed is that the head of the man, which is Christ, and in the redemptive order, she does have her long hair because she is displaying her submission to man in the creatorial order, but in the redemptive scheme, in the assembled congregation, it is her head which is being covered, symbolically covering the glory of man, which she is in herself, and as a result displaying the glory of Christ. So that may seem like a long roundabout answer, but that is where long hair comes in, and it is suggestive that the expression that is used in verse number 15 could almost be translated as a verb, her longing hair, so that a sister whose hair genetically or for health reasons doesn't grow long doesn't have to feel like somehow I am disobeying the Lord. She is allowing it to grow as it will grow, and if she is not able to grow, that is not the issue.

The issue is her longing hair. She is allowing the Lord to dictate the length of her hair. When the subject of head covering was... I'm sorry.

Where's that other question? The other question was relative to head coverings in gatherings which are not assembly meetings, weddings and funerals, and also mentions in other churches. I guess soon they mean in church buildings and head coverings. Let me preface this because it is a it is a difficult question, and it is a sensitive issue.

Let me preface it by saying if the assembly in which you are in fellowship in, if the oversight of that assembly has requested a certain pattern of behavior, head coverings at meetings or any gathering that occurs within the assembly, such as weddings and funerals, then please please follow the recommendation of the leaders of your assembly and wear a head covering, but since I have been asked and since the I have the Word of God before me, if you look at chapter 11 in verse 16, it seems to me that what Paul is dictating here is what is true in assembly gatherings. If any man seem to be contentious, he's referring now here to the head covering, we have no such custom, neither the churches of God, neither the local assemblies. So what I would take from verses 1 through verse 16 is Paul is dealing with what is true of assembly gatherings.

So what constitutes an assembly gathering? Is it just when all the Christians are together? I would take it that an assembly gathering is when the entire assembly is together, or at least invited to be together. It is under the control of the oversight of the assembly. They are responsible for the character and the conduct and the events of the meeting, and it is for the purpose, it is for carrying out one of the spiritual activities of the assembly.

Now, you might say, where's that definition? Well, you know as well as I, the seven different gatherings of the assembly in the New Testament. The only gathering which is segregated or is not the entire assembly is the oversight meeting. All the other meetings are the assembly gathered together.

When the whole church be gathered together, whether the missionary meeting, the breaking of bread, Bible reading, ministry, whether it is a missionary report meeting, or whether it is a discipline meeting, the entire assembly is gathered together for all of those gatherings. Those gatherings are under the care and the responsibility of the oversight, and they all carry out spiritual functions of the assembly. Now, I have difficulty, and I'm just leaving this with you to consider, I have difficulty when there's a wedding, and it's under the control of the bride and her family, and the bride speaks publicly at the gathering, and I have difficulty seeing that as an assembly gathering.

I have difficulty viewing that as an assembly meeting. It is not for a spiritual purpose. The moment we start making marriage a sacrament like the Roman Church does, then we've gone beyond Scripture.

But again, I am just leaving that with you as what I see from this first passage in 1 Corinthians 11, but again, underlining that if there are assemblies and elders who view that differently, and they have requested the sisters to have their heads covered, there certainly could not be found anything wrong with a sister covering her head in her home to pray if she wished. Nothing wrong with a sister covering her head for a wedding or covering her head for a funeral if that is her conviction. So you can't go wrong there, and if the brethren have requested that you do that, then please do seek to yield to their wisdom and their suggestion for the sake of assembly unity.

Now, there are two other questions that have to do with discipline, and I'll take the difficult one first. What does a family do when a member of a family is disciplined, such as a college student, not necessarily under the roof of his parents, but not yet established on his or her own? Well, I think we can just maybe broaden it. What do you do about a family member under discipline? 1 Corinthians 5, just look at it because the next two questions have to do with that.

Verse 9, I wrote unto you in the epistle not to company with fornicators. Verse 11, but I have written now written unto you not to keep company if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator, or covetous, or idolater, or railer, or drunkard, or extortioner, with such in one know not to eat. What are the boundaries then of assembly discipline? Supposing, as the suggestion here is, it involves someone in your family.

Well, I think the wording of chapter 5, verses 9, and again verse number 11, the idea of mixing with someone certainly would not involve family. The idea of mixing with someone suggests a voluntary socializing and sharing together of a fellowship, and family, it's not a voluntary thing. God has put us in families.

We don't have a choice. Maybe some of you wish you did have a choice with some of your kids, but we don't have a choice. We are there as a result of being part of family, and I do think that the issue of discipline does not enter into a family.

It's not such as the old order Anabaptists who practice shunning even of family members and of spouses and so on. I don't think God intends that. I think that within a family setting, that family remains intact.

Of course, it takes wisdom, as with everything else, carrying out the Word of God. It takes wisdom to recognize, yes, we are still together as a family, but that means I can still carry out the Word of God, 1 Corinthians 5, to do nothing to sympathize or to support the behavior that is being disciplined. That can be very clear.

It doesn't mean you're harping on it. It doesn't mean you constantly bring it up. It does mean it's clear that you are in fellowship with the assembly and its discipline, but family remains intact and family relationships remain intact.

In fact, there's great value to that, to being able to maintain family relationships, even under those types of circumstances. Otherwise, it's almost as though the family comes under discipline as well, that that family has to bear the burden of a member that is under discipline by its own awkwardness in dealing with family relationships. Again, wisdom, because one of the reasons for this withdrawal of social fellowship is to prevent the spread of the sin, purge out the old leaven, and so on.

It's to prevent the spread of the sin, so that if the individual under discipline has not changed their behavior, and if there are younger children in that family who could be influenced by that behavior, you may have to take other steps left to your own wisdom. I don't think any of us would ever want to dictate to another family what needs to be done. That is so painful and so personal that I think we all would be well simply to pray for that family if those kind of conditions occurred.

But again, it would take wisdom to implement and to carry out the Word of God in those kinds of circumstances. The last question relates, could you explain more clearly about keeping the feast and what we have in verse number 8, Therefore let us keep the feast, not with the old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness. Keeping the feast is not the Lord's Supper.

Nowhere in the New Testament is the Lord's Supper called a feast. We use that word when we sing. It's in our hymns, and we'll keep singing it.

But only two expressions are used for what we do on Lord's Day morning. It is called the Lord's Supper. It's dignity.

It is called the breaking of bread. It's simplicity. We call it the morning meeting and that's fine, but they're talking at home now about having the morning meeting at 5 p.m. tonight when the roads are clear.

So it's not always the morning meeting, and if you went to the north of Ireland where there are a lot of dairy farmers, they would have the morning meeting at 12 o'clock or later. So, you know, the morning meeting is a convenient term, but really it's the breaking of bread or it is the Lord's Supper. It's not the feast.

So what then is the feast? Well again, patiently bear with me. When you come to verse number seven, you'll notice he uses the expression, Christ our Passover was sacrificed for us. And then he says, let us keep the feast.

Now, I think in one of the other meetings we mentioned things that always go together. Things that are wedded in Scripture and never divorced. One of the things that are always wedded together in Scripture is Passover and the feast of unleavened bread.

In fact, sometimes they're used interchangeably. They kept the Passover for seven days, or when the days of unleavened bread were come, that they're used almost interchangeably in the Word of God, because God never expects them to be separated. Now, the lesson in type is this.

If Passover speaks of conversion and the feast of unleavened bread speaks of a life of holiness, God expects no delay, no separation between those two things. That a life of holiness is to begin with conversion. Could I say that again for the sake maybe of some younger ones not in God's assembly? You profess to be saved.

Holiness doesn't begin when you come into God's assembly. It begins at conversion. That's when God expects a life to change.

That's when God expects a life to begin bearing the fruit of holiness, at conversion, not at reception to God's assembly. If it hasn't been seen before reception, maybe reception should just be slowed down a little bit. So, those two things always go together.

So now, come back to 1 Corinthians chapter 5. Paul is saying, you people are living at ease and at comfort with sin in your midst. He says, if you really believe that Christ our Passover was sacrificed, then he says your lives should be marked by holiness. Your life, not the breaking of bread.

Your life, the feast, the feast of unleavened bread from conversion on should be marked by holiness. Now, he says, in light of that, in light of keeping this feast, just as Israel ate the feast and it meant fellowship together, enjoying together, the great truth of the feast of unleavened bread, just as Israel kept that, he says now, don't you eat, don't you carry out this feast with leaven. He says, put away from among yourselves.

The social aspect now, how we live, the day-to-day life of believers, there should be no social interaction that would encourage, that would support, that would someway enable that sin to keep happening, but a withdrawal of that to make it clear that the assembly cannot support, cannot encourage, cannot sympathize with this form of behavior. So, the eating and the feast here has nothing to do with the Lord's Supper. Of course, obviously, the person is outside the assembly.

That's a given. They're not partaking of the Lord's Supper, but the feast here is not a literal eating. It is rather an observing of life, if you will, a way of life, a social and spiritual fellowship that is no longer possible with the person who is guilty of this sin.

Now, I took longer, as always, to answer those, and I do apologize, and I'm sure you will have some thoughts on it. So, please write me. I'm always happy to open my mind to other people's suggestions.

Now, we'll turn quickly to 1 Corinthians and chapter 4. The subject before us is the barometer of an assembly. The barometer of an assembly is this misunderstood, this frequently abused term of love, and with God's help, we want to look at it in the closing minutes and leave it with you before we leave. Now, look at chapter 4 and verse number 14.

I write not these things to shame you as my beloved sons. I warn you. Verse 17.

For this cause I send unto you Timotheus, who is my beloved son and faithful Lord, who will bring you into remembrance of all my ways which be in Christ as I teach in every place. Verse 21. What will you? Shall I come unto you with a rod or in love and in the spirit of meekness? Chapter 8. Verse number 1. Now, as touching things offered unto idols, we know that we all have knowledge.

Knowledge puffeth up, but charity or love builds up. And if any man think he knoweth anything, he knoweth nothing yet as he ought to know. And if any man love God, the same is known.

Now, I would take it that is the idea, not just that God knows us, but known in an approving way, that God approves of this man's behavior, this man's kind of life. Look again, please, at chapter 13. Verse number 1. Though I speak with tongues of men and of angels and have not charity or love, I am become a sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.

And though I have the gift of prophecy, understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains and have not charity, I am nothing. Though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, and have not charity, it profiteth me nothing. Charity suffereth long and is kind.

Charity envieth not. Charity vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil, rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth with the truth, beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. Verse 13.

And now abideth faith, hope, charity, these three, but the greatest of these is charity. Chapter 16, please. Verse number 13.

Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit ye like men, be strong. Let all things be done with charity. Look down the chapter, verse 21, the salutation of Paul, of me, Paul, with mine own hand, if any man love not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be anathema, maranatha.

The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you, my love be with you all in Christ Jesus. Amen. Now just quickly, 2nd Epistle, chapter 11.

We're going to group these together. There will not be a handling of each one individually. Paul here with his defense in chapter 11 of his apostleship and the answering the accusations of others.

Verse 10. As the truth is in, as the truth of Christ is in me, no man shall stop me of this boasting in the regions of Achaia. Wherefore, because I love you not, God knoweth.

Look at chapter 12 and just verse number 14. 2nd Corinthians 12 and 14. Behold the third time I am ready to come unto you, and I will not be burdensome to you, for I seek not yours but you.

For the children ought not to lay up for parents, but parents for the children. And I will very gladly spend and be spent for you, though the more abundantly I love you, the less I be loved. Now, I believe God will add his rich blessing to the reading of his word.

In the first epistle, not going into the second yet, in the first epistle, at least on 17 occasions, Paul speaks of love. It's interesting that one of them, the next to the last in chapter 16, is not the word we usually use for love, the agape love. It is rather the filial love, and we'll see why perhaps he uses that expression.

If any man love not the Lord Jesus, let him be anathema. But having said that, I want you to look first of all at the range, think of the range of their misdeeds, of the conduct that marked this assembly. There was certainly everything contrary to what love for God and neighbor spoke of, wasn't there? There was immorality.

Instead of a love for righteousness, there was immorality. There was the idolatry and the testing of affection towards God. They didn't love God with all their hearts.

There was the rivalry, one with another, for gift and for prominence and for place. There was the strife and the contention and the variances and the divisions that were going on, that Paul has to put his finger upon as being evidence of the flesh at work amongst them. There was sedition against Paul.

There was drunkenness in the assembly, and there was the shaming of the poor and the feasting while they were perhaps even starving, whatever the case. But there was this tremendous conduct that bespoke anything but Christian love. The range of their misdeeds.

Well, what is love? Let me just touch on then the recognition of its meaning. When you come to 1 Corinthians chapter 13, love is not defined. Love is described.

Big difference. Love isn't defined. It's one of those concepts that it's pretty difficult to get your hands around and give some nice pithy definition of.

And so Paul doesn't try to define love. Rather, he describes love and describes for us what love is and how love operates. And if we could just use one expression to convey what is in Paul's mind, he tells us that love is others-oriented.

It is others-oriented. It is that which is always seeking others and their good. That which is always reaching out to others.

That which is always looking to others. And so he is bringing before us this great fact that love is not necessarily something which is self-centered, certainly. But also perhaps he is suggesting to us something very crucial and that is love is not a feeling primarily.

Now, I don't want to say that love doesn't have feelings linked with it. We are emotional creatures. God has wired us that way.

That we have strong, intense emotion. But love is primarily a choice. Now, I know that's a hackneyed expression since the book came out, but I hardly know a better way to put it.

Love is a choice. So that a husband chooses a wife and then chooses for the rest of his life to love her and grow in his love and continue in his love. And believers choose to love one another.

And now, you know, just be honest where you are. There are people in your assembly who, if you all were just meeting in the world unsaved, you wouldn't choose as friends. Personalities.

Just differences. You wouldn't choose them as your friends. You would probably hardly say hello to them if they were your neighbors.

But now that you're redeemed and you belong to Christ together and you are in an assembly together, you have chosen to love them. Or should I say you are supposed to choose to love them. Doesn't mean you got to get warm fuzzies inside when you see them or goose bumps when they walk into the meeting.

No, no. That's not what we're at. It is an attitude that I display towards another believer.

It is a choice that I make. I am going to put the welfare of this person as number one on my priority list. Their welfare becomes more important than my welfare.

That's what Philippians 2 teaches. That's what is being taught in 1 Corinthians 13 concerning love. The great problem in the assembly was despite all the profession of knowledge and gift and ability, there was a lack of love.

And so he brings them to this, the description of love, and we are reminded as we read this chapter of the display of love, aren't we? You can't read the chapter without thinking of the Lord Jesus and the ultimate display of love in his life. It was a love that was always seeking the good of others, a love that always thought of others, a love that loved what was unlovable in itself, but a love that chose not because of something it was getting back, not because of some dividend in the end or some payback time that was coming. He chose to love because that's what he chose.

Now you think of it. You can neither love God in kind or in quantity the way he loves you, can you? Because our need is a response love and God is worthy to be loved. He deserves it.

We didn't deserve it. So even when, even if somehow we could rise to our highest spiritual capacity of love, we would still be returning a love that is deserved, whereas his love for us was absolutely undeserved. And if we could rise to our fullest capacity to love, it would be a mere drop in the ocean compared to the amount of love he has for us.

So at the very best we are feeble, but we can love one another, can't we? And it becomes most godlike when that love is unilateral and perhaps undeserved and unreturned. So it's not that we look for reasons to love one another. It's a choice that we make, a choice that we consciously make to love another.

Now the implications are tremendous. Let me just give you one implication that I indicated on the outline. Listen to this scenario for just a moment and tell me what's wrong with it, okay? From what we have just said.

I am going to leave this assembly and go somewhere else because there is no love in this assembly. Okay? You've heard it. I've heard it.

What's wrong with it? What does that statement really reveal about the person? If the love I am to display is a love that doesn't look for anything in return, if the love I am to display is a love that is unilateral, that just goes out, looks for nothing in return, requires nothing in return, demands nothing in return, isn't looking for paybacks, kickbacks, you know, no honor in return, just loving as God loves, then the moment I say, no one here loves me, I am revealing that I don't love. Because what I'm doing is I'm looking for something for myself. I'm self-occupied.

I'm self-contained. I'm absorbed with what I'm getting. Whereas love does not look for anything in return.

It gives. It displays itself. It yields itself.

It serves. Whatever way you want to look at it. It is always unilateral, going outward towards others.

So that was the display of love that Christ had. Love described, love displayed, but love has been decreed, hasn't it? Love one another. The Lord Jesus has given us to us as that new commandment.

John says it's a new commandment, yet it's an old commandment that she heard from the beginning, that ye should love one another. Now, how's it going? Come on. The assembly you're in, how's it going? People that you find difficult to love, people you've kind of made up your mind, you know, who cares? No.

Love one another. So don't sit back and wait for someone to love you. God's command is love one another.

You might say, but you don't know what it's like. Yes, I do. I think I do.

That's why it's so wonderful to think not just of love that has been described and love that has been displayed and love that has been decreed, but love that has been dispensed. That's why he tells us in Romans chapter 5 that the Holy Ghost has come, the Spirit of God has come, and the great result of that is given the capacity to love, given a capacity to love. The life of God in the souls of men is what Christianity is all about.

And if the life of God resides in you, then that life can be expressed and it will be expressed in love for others. Love, the recognition of its meaning. But love would have been the remedy to all of the maladies that occurred in the assembly at Corinth.

Let me just catalog them very hurriedly before I move to where I would want to really spend some time. What about the rivalry and the envy of men in chapter 12, 13 and 14 when it came to gift? Each one wanting to have the place of prominence, each one wanting to speak and so on. Well, he's told us in chapter 13, love envieth not.

Love wouldn't covet someone else's gift. Love wouldn't covet the place of prominence. What about what he talked about in chapter 12 of men pushing themselves and being puffed up with their knowledge? Love vaunteth not itself.

What about the immorality of chapter 5? Love rejoiceth not in iniquity, rejoiceth in the truth. You've seen that bumper sticker. I've actually been almost thinking of writing something about it.

You've seen that bumper sticker. Maybe you haven't. Maybe it's just an East Coast thing with our tolerant liberalism on the East Coast.

You know, it says hatred is not a family value. Really? Hatred is a family value. I hope you teach your children to hate sin.

We never, never taught to hate people. That's not a family value. The hatred of people is not a family value.

But the hatred of everything God hates is a family value. Teach your children to hate lawlessness. Here they were rejoicing in iniquity, not rejoicing in the truth.

What does he say here about being puffed up? Charity vaunteth on itself, is not puffed up. How many times did we read you're puffed up and should have mourned? Knowledge puffs up and you're puffed up one against another. My, the exact opposite is true of love.

It doesn't puff itself up. It doesn't want to display itself. It doesn't demand its way and its rights.

What does he say also about behaveth not itself unseemly? Could you apply that to chapter 11 and unseemly behavior at the Lord's Supper? And unseemly behavior of sisters in their lack of a head covering? Love doesn't behave itself unseemly. What about is not easily provoked? Wouldn't that have solved the problem of chapter six of two men going to law one against another? Every malady afflicting the assembly at Corinth is answered in chapter 13. So when you go to chapter 13, you remember Paul's not speaking at a wedding.

Paul is not giving some lovely address at someone's 50th wedding anniversary and giving a poem about love. Paul is taking an assembly with all of its problems and he's saying, if you understood what it means to love as God intend you to love, none of this would have ever occurred. You're all looking out for number one.

Love would have you considering others rather than yourself. So we have there the remedy for all of their maladies. But let me come to the realms in which love ministers.

Let me just take quickly three or four realms and just show you the scriptures that we have before us. I want you to think of shepherds. First of all, I want you to think of saints, of servants and of submitting.

Paul will deal with love in all of those spheres. Now, I am taking a liberty and you'll understand why I am doing this, that Paul himself is what I'm going to use as the example of a shepherd, of a shepherd's heart when I speak about how love is seen in the realm of shepherding as it's seen in the apostle Paul. So as you think of Paul and his relationship to the assembly at Corinth and what he has written, I want you to think, first of all, of the shepherd's concerns, of the shepherd's cost, of the shepherd's care and as well of the shepherd's constancy.

All of that is seen in the words that Paul has used. What about the shepherd's concerns? What does he say in chapter four as he speaks there, as he writes them about his concern for them? He writes not as someone who is going to make demands and make requirements of them. He writes to them as his beloved children, and he would not come with a rod, but rather in the spirit of love.

His concern for them was multifold, the preservation of the saints from from all the attacks of the enemy. And that has to be done out of love, not out of a rigid sense of every man to his battle station, the enemy's coming and, you know, grab your guns and no, no, a sense of love for the flock. A care for them as a result of what they mean to God, for their preservation, a concern as well for the prosperity of the saints, not just that they're getting along and everybody's healthy, everybody's got a job, but rather the thought of their of their spiritual prosperity.

Paul displays that, doesn't he? He tells us in these chapters in in chapter 11 of his second epistle of his great concern for them and his concern for their their spiritual welfare. He says, I write not these things to shame you, but as as a father, I have a care for you as a as my children to see you growing and going on and bearing fruit, have a real care for the assembly, not just that they're there for a meeting, not just that everybody looks good on the outside, that the clothes are right and the appearance is right and the smile is right. And no, no, you have a care for the spiritual fruitfulness of the flock of God.

Takes time to get to know where young believers are in their spiritual progress, where sisters are in their spiritual progress and all you can do to help them, maybe just a book you give them, maybe somebody who's stressed and doesn't have time for maybe as much of the study of the word of God as you have just some way of being a help to them in a simple way, a young believer, a word of encouragement. And so Paul here is displaying his concern for their preservation, for their prosperity, for their productivity and for the peace of the assembly at Corinth, an assembly in chaos. Where's Paul going to bring this chaotic condition to? Where does he bring it to that we read earlier today in chapter 14? God is not the author of confusion, but of peace.

You are in a confused, chaotic condition. The principles of the word of God that I have brought before you will bring peace. Now, understand that when you come to the New Testament, peace is not the absence of problems.

That's a very negative thing. If you just want peace and quiet, you can walk in a cemetery. That's not what God is looking for in an assembly.

Peace is the presence of everything that is conducive to spiritual growth. That's what James writes, doesn't he? Who was a wise man and endued with knowledge among you? Let him show out of his manner of life, his good behavior and so on. And he ends that section of chapter three with the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace of them that make peace.

What's he talking about? He's saying the soil for an assembly for growth. Our conditions of peace, everything conducive for fruit to develop in that life. Takes great care.

That's why younger believers hardly know it. It's easy to sit back and to be critical of overseers. You hardly know the 10 percent of all they grieve over and the burdens they have and the concerns they have and the difficulties they face all with this great burden before them.

What's best for the assembly? What is going to honor God in the assembly? What is going to lead to fruitfulness in the assembly? What is for the best of the assembly? We all have the answers when you were younger. I had them, too. Had all the answers for everything.

Suddenly, when circumstances bring you to where you become responsible for some of those answers, you find your amazement. The older men weren't quite so dull after all. It's not easy to to lead God's people into paths of peace.

The great shepherd of Psalm 23, recall what it says. He makes me to lie down in green pastures, leadeth me by paths of righteousness for his namesake. That's what he's doing.

That's what we should be doing is under shepherds for the for the people of God, his love, the concern of the shepherd. But Paul reminds us as well that this business of shepherding has a cost link with it, doesn't it? He says, gladly, I will spend and be spent, though the more I love, the less I be loves. Tremendous cost link with shepherding.

Paul says it's a thankless job. When everything is going well in assembly, the Lord is blessing us, isn't it wonderful? And when things aren't going well, what's wrong with the overseers? You know, we're all the same, say the same thing. When things are going well, the Lord gets the credit.

And when things aren't going well, the overseers get blamed. Now, I'm not saying we blame the Lord when things aren't going well. I'm just saying it's a job that has no thanks.

It's a job that doesn't get rave reviews in magazines or in editorials. And it's a job that means being spent. Paul says, gladly, will I spend and be spent.

What is it that's going to make an overseer willing to pour himself out for an assembly and never receive in this life recognition, never receive in this life the appreciation perhaps that it deserves? What's going to do it? Paul tells us in Acts chapter 20, when he's speaking to the Ephesian elders, he says, keep in mind, it's the church of God. It's a little flock. And he says he purchased it with his own blood.

So I am reminded, first of all, of the price. Now, you and I have read that passage many times. You probably, as I have, have read it and thought of these individuals all being saved.

But I think there's something more. I think the existence of an assembly, assembly testimony was purchased. By the blood of his own, so that an assembly becomes precious to God in its very character, the price that was paid.

But not only that, Paul tells us that it's church of God. So not just the price, but the person to whom it belongs. It's God's.

And if I genuinely love God, I will love all that is valuable to him. And I will be willing to defend whatever is his and care for whatever it is his at whatever cost it might be. The moment I begin thinking it's my assembly.

And that the assembly somehow is going to be a reflection back on me. And what are people going to say about me if they know it's not my assembly? His assembly, it is church of God. Ownership is his, not mine.

Given privilege as an under shepherd, as a. Someone, the responsibility to lead the assembly, but not mine, his. So it is the person to whom it belongs. It is the price.

But then in chapter three of this same epistle, Paul says that assembly, that assembly at Corinth is really God's tilled field, God's husbandry. What does that mean? It means that while I have planted and a polis watered it, not only did God give the increase, but it's for God. That tilled field is to bring forth fruit for his pleasure.

Because when you have a garden, you have a garden to be able to reap the fruit of it, don't you? So if an assembly is God's garden, God's tilled field, he's, he's desiring the fruit from it. So as we think of believers developing and believers growing again, it's for God's pleasure. God's pleasure.

Is God getting anything from the assembly in which I am in fellowship? Is it really a tilled field producing fruits, not just in numbers increasing? That's not the issue. The issue is fruitful lives, lives that are growing up and developing and bringing pleasure to the heart of God. Imagine the privilege of having a little share and responsibility in an assembly and the result of what I am laboring and what I am contributing as a, as a leader, as an overseer, is that God is getting pleasure.

It's a tremendous privilege. All that I can do to bring as much pleasure from that assembly as I possibly can for God, that's what makes a man willing to pour his life. That's what makes a man willing to forego sleep, to forego hobbies, to forego some of the legitimate things of life that he might give himself more to God's assembly.

Paul says, I will gladly spend, I will yield my life for the good of the assembly at Corinth. Gladly, therefore, will I spend and be spent though the more abundantly I love, the less I be loved. What of love in its constancy? I think here Paul's shepherd heart is revealed as nowhere else.

You come to the end of the epistle, you come to an assembly that has grieved Paul greatly, has misjudged Paul, has falsely accused Paul, has tried to reduce Paul to just simply a false apostle or an imposter. How does Paul end the epistle? The very last words, my love be with you all. Nothing could shake his love for the people of God at Corinth.

It reminds me, reminds me of David, that wonderful shepherd, one of those lovely Psalms where he's fleeing from Absalom, he's running for his life. The whole nation virtually has turned against him to back Absalom, and he ends that Psalm by praying for God's blessing upon his people, the people that were rejecting him, the people making him flee for his life, the people who were God's blessing upon his people, couldn't shake David's heart, couldn't alter David's heart, no matter what you did, that was the heart of a shepherd. I don't believe in premature graves.

I do believe that God is able to keep a man alive as long as he wishes. But I think we all know some men who may be, humanly speaking, had premature graves because of great burdens for assemblies and pouring themselves out, grieving over the people of God. Loving them to the end, despite all that was occurring.

A shepherd and his love for God's people, loving without looking for anything in return. What about love of saints? He brings us to that in chapter 13. He brings us to that in chapter 8, the priority of love in every relationship.

Let me just, could I just encapsulate for just a moment 1 Corinthians chapter 13 in just a few small statements. And this by no means takes away from the depth and the profundity of that chapter. But could I just put it this way? Love always sees the best in others.

Love always says the best about others. Love always seeks the best for others. Love always stimulates the best out of others.

OK, love always sees the best. Love believes all things. You know what that simply means? It always looks for the best, doesn't look for the worst.

It's not cynical, it's not negative, it's not critical. It always puts the best face on something that it possibly can. You want proof of that? Do you want absolute, undeniable proof that love always puts the best face on things? Who do you love the most? Yourself.

So that when you do something wrong, you know how you put the best face possible on it? You kind of massage it a little bit and make it so it's not quite as bad as it was. Why? Because we love ourselves so much, we always try to make it look as the very best we possibly can. Now, Paul says, love for another will always look for the best, always assume the best rather than the worst.

Love always sees the best. Love always says the best. It will try to say what is for that person's good.

Paul says elsewhere that in our communication, one with another, he says, let no corrupt communication proceed out of your mouth, but rather that which is good. Why? For the use of edifying, to try to say what is the best about another person and to another person. What's going to be a help to that person? What can I say that will be a blessing to them, that will encourage them and help them? Love says the best.

Love always seeks the best. That's what we have in 1 Corinthians chapter 13. Love seeking another's good.

Seek is not our own. It's not concern with self. How can I get ahead in the assembly? How can I have my way in the assembly? Love always seeks the best for others and love always stirs the best, stimulates the best out of others.

That's love in our relation. What about love and service? 1 Corinthians chapter 13 again. Notice how he begins it.

Though I speak with the tongues of men and angels. And he says, though I have all gift and all knowledge and so on, though I give my body to be burned. Okay, three things.

He speaks about their speech. He speaks about their service. He speaks about their sacrifice.

And he says, if I don't have love, then tinkling brass tingling symbol means nothing. I gain nothing. It's all useless.

Well, now you flip the coin. If the measure of a value of my speech and my service and my sacrifice is directly proportional to the amount of love that motivates them, then service. Which is done with the right motive towards you and towards God is what gives it value.

Absence of motive, lack of right motive, then I get nothing. Now it may be, and it's happened, that someone could be up here. I could be up here for entirely wrong reasons.

You may get profit from what I say, but as far as. My standing at the judgment seat of Christ, it profits me nothing. I'm just useless in that sense.

And what about sacrifice? Same thing. If it's not motivated by love, then meaningless. So that love then is what gives value to all service for God and his assembly.

So that gift that you have, that service that has been given to you to do that responsibility committed to your hands. If it's not done with first Corinthians 13 character of love, not a warm feeling, not a mushy, sentimental feeling. If it's not done with the desire that this be a blessing to others, not myself, if it's not done unidirectionally without looking for anything in return, then it really is not accomplishing what God wants it to accomplish.

So love then is seen as essential, critical to give value and to give weight to service. Let me close though, by bringing you to the end of chapter 16, love and submitting. Verse 22, if any man loved not our Lord Jesus Christ, what was going to enable these Corinthian believers? This was a, this was a pretty heavy message, wasn't it? Paul just wasn't correcting one or two things.

I mean, uh, the entire letter is a letter of correction. It seemed like, uh, if you were a visitor sitting there on a Lord's day morning, when this letter was read to the assembly, you had to look back at the assembly and say, what, there's nothing right in this assembly. Everything, everything's wrong.

What is going to enable them to bow to the word of God through Paul? Let me ask you what enables you to bow to the word of God when it puts its finger upon something in your life? What about when the spirit of God singles you out in a meeting and with an almost audible voice says, thou art the man, thou art the woman, and you realize the word of God is searching you and something needs to change. What is it that enables you to change? Paul says, if any man loved not the Lord Jesus, it is love for Christ, which is going to give you the grace to change. I could come with a list of rules.

Paul said earlier, I could have come with a rod as an apostle. He could have come and demanded it. If not, he could have put people to death.

Apostolic authority. I believe he had had the ability to do it. He said, I could have come with a rod, but what's the use of that? What's the use of just a group of rules to legalistically keep everybody in tow? God gets no pleasure from that.

God gets no joy from that kind of a conformity to a group of rules. Peer pressure. Does that bring God pleasure? Everyone else is dressing this way.

I have to dress this way. Demands by the oversight. None of that is what brings genuine submission to the word of God.

Paul says, what I am going to leave you as the ultimate corrective, what I am going to give you as the ultimate means for carrying out and obeying the word of God, as painful as it was going to be for these Corinthians, because it would be painful. We could read a bit in 2nd Corinthians. Says the only thing that is going to see you through that, through recognition of wrong, through resolve to change, through repentance and through restoration.

The only thing that's going to carry you through is love for Christ. So all of us then have to come to this today. What about my love for Christ? I mentioned that the word he uses here is not the agape word, not that unidirectional that can sometimes be thought of almost as a causeless love.

The word he uses here is the philio, the love of friendship, the love that sees value in the object of which it loves. That may be why he uses it here. But as he looks up and thinks of a risen Christ, as he thinks of one who displayed that love to the point of going to a cross to make them his own, and he directs their attention to a Christ who is worthy and deserving of all of their love, he says, here is the only power.

Here is the only motivating thing I can bring you that will bring about change and submission to God's word. If any man loved not the Lord Jesus Christ, let him be accursed. Let him be anathema, maranatha.

The Lord is coming. May the Lord help us then both speaker and hear that our lives might be in conformity to God's pattern and bring him pleasure, whether as shepherds, whether as saints, whether as servants and all of us alike needing to submit and change in keeping with the word of God. Shall we pray?