Gospel in Life

Guest (Female): Welcome to Gospel in Life Radio. We often assume that being kind, generous, and forgiving is all that matters. But in his writings to the early church, the Apostle Paul offers a challenging truth: even the greatest acts of love and sacrifice are empty if they are ultimately done out of self-interest. Today, Tim Keller explores how the gospel transforms us completely, even our motives, making us people who love and serve others in response to God’s grace for us.

Guest (Female): Our scripture reading is from 1 Corinthians chapter 13, verses 1 through 8. If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. This is the word of the Lord.

Tim Keller: The passage that you just heard read is a very famous passage. It is often read at weddings, and when it is read, the response of the hearers is usually something like, "Aww." I want you to know that is not what Paul meant to say. I want you to know that the Corinthians, when they first got this, in no way said, "Oh, isn't that lovely." Not at all. In fact, there are some bombshells in this that are just astonishing.

Corinth, of all the cities of the ancient world, was probably the most like New York. That is an interesting thing to consider when we look at this. Corinth was a place of commerce, and nobody lived there except to be successful. Nobody went there to have a life. It was a little place on an isthmus between two bodies of water. Anyone who had to transport goods had to go through it. It was the perfect place for commerce.

It was built from scratch just a few decades before this letter was written. Therefore, the people who lived there did not live there because there was a native population or old families or traditions. It was a place where people came to make it. As a result, it attracted an unusually resourceful, talented, ambitious, and intense kind of person.

That is why we are not surprised that in the church of Corinth, we have a population of Christians that in many ways reflect the population and the culture. In verses 1 to 3, Paul is talking about what they already have. He says you might have this or that. He is really saying, "So what?" Verses 1 to 3 describe what they are like. They are very gifted: prophecy, communication, faith that moves mountains, leadership. Fathom all mysteries; they are brilliant. They are teachers and scholars. They are gifted and talented.

But Paul says the important thing is verses 4 to 7. This is the reason why the Corinthians, when they first heard this, were not inspired. If you read the whole book of 1 Corinthians, you will see that practically every Greek word that shows up in verses 4 to 7 has already been used earlier in the book where Paul was criticizing them for their disputing, fighting, fractiousness, and party spirit.

In other words, verses 4 to 7 is a list of all the things that the Corinthians are not. Paul was not sitting there saying, "Well, what should I say about love? Love is patient, it's kind." No. He is saying very simply, "You are the most talented group of people, and yet when it comes to your actual character, your doing is great, but your being stinks. Your giftedness is great, but your character isn't much."

Of course, one of the reasons for this is because not just in Corinth, but in New York and all big cities, all the emphasis is on being a professional. What is being a professional? Being a professional is: I don't care what you are in your private world or your personal life or your innermost heart. Professionals just perform. All the emphasis is on performing and productiveness.

It is almost understood that the most talented and most brilliant people in New York are the most troubled, the most angry, the most temperamental, and the most vain. Here is what Paul says right into this kind of culture that puts all the emphasis on talent and achievement. He looks right at you and he says, "I don't care how rich you are, I don't care how successful you are, I don't care how talented you are. If you're irritable and impatient and selfish and self-centered and self-absorbed and self-pitying and vain and driven and anxious, you've got nothing."

Don't say, "Well, I'm a successful person, I've just got a few personal issues to deal with." You have got nothing. You are nothing. He comes right at it and says character is everything. Not ability, not talent, not achievement, but character. We used to have a way of making fun of people who did not have the looks or the ability or a lot of talent. We used to say, "He or she has a nice personality." In other words, if they were nice, kind, generous, and undriven, but they weren't talented, we made fun of them. Paul is reversing that.

The whole subject of virtue and character is one that in our culture, there is a great amount of storm and stress about. On the one hand, everybody says character is important. On the other hand, nobody can agree as to what it is or how it's important. Many of the culture wars involve head-banging about this subject. What the Bible says about heart character doesn't really fit into any of the categories.

As an introduction, tonight we are going to ask this question: what is heart character? What is the inner supernatural change in character that God can bring? This text in some ways tells us two things that heart character is not, and then one thing it is. First of all, inner heart character is not the same thing at all as being gifted.

Here Paul really drops a bombshell. It is in verse 2: "If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing." Let me show you what those three things are. First of all, faith that can move mountains. Almost every commentator thinks Paul would not be speaking this way about saving faith. He is not talking about the kind of faith that relates you to God. Faith that moves mountains is a leadership gift.

Leadership is the ability to get a group of people who otherwise would not be able to surmount a particular obstacle to do so. It is an infectious vision gift that enables you to get people to do things otherwise they couldn't do. So, faith to move mountains is a leadership gift. Prophecy is not just a communication gift; it is direct revelation from God, fathoming the mysteries.

Paul is saying God could have made you a great leader in the church, helped hundreds or thousands of people through you, and given direct revelation right to you. These are not false prophets in verse 2; this is a real prophet. Real prophecy, direct revelation from God through you to the world. God could have used you as a great leader and given you the spirit of prophecy. God could have used you miraculously and done miracles through you, and you not be a Christian at all.

That is what verse 2 is saying. You can have all that and be spiritually nothing. When he says, "I am nothing," he is not just talking in some kind of rhetorical insult. He is saying you could be spiritually zero, nothing at all. Jonathan Edwards, in a sermon on this, said that many bad men have had spiritual gifts. Many will say on the last day, "Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name and in thy name cast out devils and in thy name done many wonderful works?"

The word "wonderful works" is a word that means miracles. On the last day, Jesus is going to meet people who said, "We preached, we got revelation from you, we did miracles from you." And Jesus is going to say to many of them, "I never knew you." Edwards goes on and says it is possible to have gifts of the spirit but no special saving work of the spirit in the heart.

Gifts of the spirit are excellent things, but they are not things which are inherent in the nature, as true grace and holiness are. Gifts of the spirit are then, as it were, like precious jewels which a man carries about him. But true grace in the heart is the preciousness of the heart itself, by which the soul becomes a precious jewel through the spirit of God.

So different are talent and gifts from supernatural grace and character growth in the heart that it is possible to actually do miracles through the power of God and not be a Christian at all. Or be an incredibly weak Christian. Put another way, it is possible to give your talents to the service of God and not give your heart to God. It is possible to do great deeds in the lives of other people and even miraculous gifts and not ever really surrender your heart and your will in faith and trust and give the throne of your life over to him.

Two questions always arise at this point. First question: if that's true, why would God ever let his power work through people who weren't Christians at all, or at least were very weak Christians? The answer is because God is a very kind and loving person. Just think of what a crummy world it would be if only mature Christians were the people who could counsel and could help and could teach. God is just very helpful and loving. He cares about everybody.

But here is the better question: how is it possible to be incredible leaders, have the gift of prophecy, and do incredible things in the lives of other people, and have very little grace in your own life? I will tell you how possible it is. This is a great warning. You mistake your talent for character. You mistake a gift operation of the Holy Spirit for an operation of grace or fruit and holiness in the heart.

Imagine a man who hates his mother. It is distorting his character. Maybe all of his relationships with women are distorted. But there is a ground note of self-pity that just permeates his life. It is like a bass note. You feel them more than you hear them. You sense them. They are almost impossible to hear; you just feel them.

There are people who have these very deep ground notes of self-pity that run through their lives. They don't even realize that there is a little part of their heart that is constantly saying, "Nothing ever goes well for me. After what she did to me, and I never had this or that, that's the way it is." When you have that kind of ground note, maybe this guy has trouble with his temper. He tends to go off too soon. Maybe he just gets downcast too quickly. He is not resilient when bad things happen.

Then he becomes a Christian. What happens? Well, one thing you can do is the very hard work of character change, in which you not only with the new sense of God's love, you have finally got the emotional wealth, you have got enough affirmation you can admit things about yourself for the first time. You can admit just how much of a self-pityer you are, which takes a lot of work.

And then you have to, instead of bringing the love of God in Christ in a sustained way into your heart, sensing the love of God in Christ into your heart at the moments when self-pity rears up so as to absorb it and destroy it, instead of that, what happens is he comes to church and we find out this person has a great public speaking gift. Next thing you know, the person is teaching.

There is something about gifts that is interesting. You walk into a room as a teacher, and there is something about the situation that draws out the teaching gift. Next thing you know, you are teaching, and you are doing well. God is using you and the people are helped. You sense that you are doing something right for them. They tell you how great you are. And what do we all assume? He is walking with God. God's using him. And therefore, I must have fine character. Therefore, I must be walking with God. Therefore, the grace of God and the love of God is changing my heart.

No, not at all. We constantly mistake talent for character. And that is the worst possible thing you can do because talent is not character. As a matter of fact, lots and lots of talent with very little character can be spiritual poison because you mistake the talent for the character. So the first thing Paul is trying to say is, it is possible to do, do, do, do, do and be nothing.

You ought to look at yourselves, everybody. You ought to say, "Am I hiding behind the good things I'm doing for people and the way people say, 'Oh, you helped me so much'? Am I hiding behind my abilities and behind my talents? And underneath I'm joyless, I'm always feeling slighted, my ego is no different, I am impatient, I am irritable, I do tend to be harsh, I do keep a record of wrongs, I do give up." Look out. It is so natural for us to mistake gifts for grace, talent for character.

The second thing we learn here is not just that inner heart character is not being gifted, it is not just being good. Because verse 3 gives us another little list, and it is a different list. If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. Now it is another list. He starts over. No talents in here.

Give all to the poor; that is generosity and a social conscience. Give all to the poor, which means here is a person who is willing to live a thrifty life and a disciplined life and a simple life and a self-denying life. And then surrender my body to the flames. Here is somebody who is so committed, a person of such integrity that I am going to live for my values even if it costs me my life. There is integrity, there is honesty, dying for the faith.

What is interesting about this list is that it unites the sort of liberal and conservative sorts of virtue lists. If you ask a liberal type person what the list of virtues is, and a conservative type person, they always come up with somewhat different lists. But it unites them here. Give social justice on the one hand, care for the poor, and on the other hand, dying for the faith. But Paul says again, you could have all that and it still be nothing. Now this is extremely confusing. You start to ask yourself the question, "What do you mean here?" Everybody says gifts don't matter, but what matters is virtuous behavior. But Paul slams that list too.