Telling the Truth

Guest (Male): Love is the greatest virtue for any believer, because it reflects the very nature and character of God. Today on Telling the Truth, special guest speaker Charles Price begins his message, All you need is love, to show you what it looks like to love like God loves. We'll get started in just a moment. Everyone experiences disappointments in life, and when those thoughts are left unattended, they can lead you to despair and cause you to miss out on the abundant life Jesus promises. That's why we want to help you win the battle against feelings of discouragement by sending you Stuart and Jill Briscoe's five message series, Hope for the Disheartened.

The Hope for the Disheartened series is our thanks for your gift to help more people experience life through the teaching and resources of Telling the Truth. So request your copy when you give today. 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Now here's our guest speaker Charles.

Charles Price: What if you have your Bible? I'm going to read you from 1 Corinthians and chapter 13. 1 Corinthians one of the New Testament letters, one of the longer of the New Testament letters. And I'm going to read the whole of the chapter which is 13 verses. 1 Corinthians 13 and verse one. Paul writes, If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging symbol. 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. But where there are prophecies, they will cease. Where there are tongues, they will be stilled. Where there is knowledge, it will pass away.

For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. When I was a child, I talked like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror, then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part, then I shall know fully even as I am fully known. And now these three remain, faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. And no, we're not going to conduct a wedding here this morning.

That's normally the occasion when you hear these or some of these verses being read. But if you've been with us lately that we have made the last verse of this chapter, the sort of springboard in which we've gone into other parts of the Bible, and in those verses he says, now these three things remain, faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. We talked about faith as looking to God, hope as looking to the future. We are talk about love as looking towards others. And we're not going to springboard out of this chapter this time.

We're going to stay here because this is the classic chapter that we have in the New Testament on love. Love is the greatest of all virtues. And the reason for that is that twice in the first letter of John, we have these three words, God is love. Now God is not faith. God is not hope. These are attributes of God, qualities that God may be the source of in our own life. But he actually is love. And I don't think it's right to say that love is an attribute of God. An attribute is a quality that you might see in somebody.

Omnipotence is an attribute of God. He's all powerful, omniscient. He knows everything. That's an attribute of God. Omnipresence. He's everywhere at the same time. That's an attribute of God. But love is his actual nature. It defines his very being. Therefore everything else that is true about God is permeated by love. Even his wrath is an expression of his love. It's because he is love that he hates those things that destroy and defile and corrupt us, which is why we see the wrath of God in scripture because it is a necessary expression of his love. In fact, if he wasn't angry with sin, we would question whether he really loved the sinner.

Now the goal of the gospel is the restoration and reproduction of the character of God within us. And for that reason, if God is love, love is intended to characterize those of us who are made in his image and designed to be a physical, visible portrayal of what God is like. We are broken, of course. We are fallen. And therefore the love of God in us is filtered through that fallen nature. And we see the marring of it in our own lives and our own experience. But nevertheless, it is the love of God in us and through us that is the highest expression of the Christian life.

Jesus in John 13 verse 34 said to his disciples, a new command I give you, love one another. Then explained how this works. As I have loved you, so you must love one another. And by this all men will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. Now if I'm simply to say I have a new command for you, love one another. You got that Peter grabbed my love. Thaddeus, who's another one of the disciples you probably don't get on with very much and John, you got to love Judas. That's my command.

They would say, well, how in the world am I supposed to do that? So he explains, as I have loved you. What that means is this. Our first capacity for love is to know that we ourselves are loved. That alone is the reservoir out of which we are able to love one another. We know that we are loved. That's why fundamental to uh experience as a Christian and the outworking of the character of God in us as Christians is we need to know that we are loved. Not just that we're saved, that's good, important. Not just that we have been delivered, not just we're going to heaven one day, not just that our past is gone, but we're actually loved.

Guest (Male): Charles Price, talking with us today about the virtue of love and why it's essential for the Christian life. We'll return in a moment. Tellingthetruth.org and the Telling the Truth app are great resources to help you grow in your spiritual life. Packed with videos like Ask the Briscoes, articles from Stuart and Jill, and encouraging audio teaching content, you'll find a treasure trove of resources to encourage you and others in your faith. And while you're there, you can also request this month's featured resource when you give a gift to help more people around the world experience life in Christ.

So visit us online or download the app today. We look forward to connecting with you. Let's get back to Charles Price now.

Charles Price: You are loved. Took me a long time to understand that because I did not have an understanding of myself that made me lovable. Well, you probably don't either. But this is the marvel of this kind of love we're going to talk about. You don't have to be lovable because that love does not originate in the attraction of the loved. It originates in the love nature of the lover. And as God loves us and in that love draws us into a a relationship of which we need have no fear, no shame, no hiding because he loves us through and through.

So we then and only then may we love one another. Now I know I'm a pauper in this area. I get wrapped up in my own little world. I get wrapped up in my own little interests and my own little self. But we're going to I'm going to and you're going to stunt our spiritual growth. Until we learn to bask first in the love of God and allow out of that love a freedom to love one another. Now let me just define our terms a little bit. There are two words for love in the New Testament.

There are actually three Greek words for love. One is not a New Testament. But the two that are there are the words phileo, which is to have affection, friendship, the the name Philadelphia. Two big words means to love your brother. It's the kind of love that says, I like you and you like me. So that's nice. I like you, you like me. Let's have a friendship. And a lot of friendship, most friendship is formed on on that basis. You're my friend, I'm your friend. That's phileo love. Agape is the second word that the Greeks outside of the New Testament writings hardly ever used.

They did use it, but it was extremely rarely because it is a love that describes the love of God. It's not simply an emotion. You like me, I like you. We're having a wonderful friendship. It is essentially an act of the will. It says, I love you whether you love me or not, whether you reciprocate my love or not, whether you turn your back on me or not, I love you. That's agape love. So love that's not conditioned by how it's reciprocated or received. You know Jesus talked about this in Luke 6 verse 32. He said this, if you love those who love you, what credit is that to you?

Even sinners love those who love them. That's the phileo love. That's you'd be my friend, I'll be your friend. You love me, I'll love you. And we have this mutual thing going together. But but if you love those who love you, that's no credit. Even sinners do that, he says. And if you do good to those who are good to you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that. And if you lend to those from whom you expect repayment, what credit is that? Even sinners lend to sinners expecting to be repaid in full.

But you love your enemies, do good to them and lend to them without expecting to get anything back in return. That's a different kind of love, isn't it? Any Tom, Dick, Harry, Mary can have what he calls there. The even sinners love this way. Anybody without Christ loves this way where you love someone because they love you back. You invite them for dinner because maybe they'll invite you back for dinner. You loan to them in need because you're going to get it back eventually. Anybody does that. And as said Jesus, the kind of love I'm bringing into your lives is a supernatural love.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the German martyr in the 1940s said about this text, By our enemies, Jesus means those who are quite intractable and utterly unresponsive to our love who forgive us nothing when we forgive them all. Who return our love with hatred and our service with derision. That's the love that we give. When there's no response to it, we forgive everything and nothing's forgiven back. Our love is returned with hatred. And our service is treated with derision. Says Dietrich Bonhoeffer who knew by the way exactly what he was talking about. Spends years in prison in a Nazi jail.

And eventually his execution just a few days before the end of the war. This is agape love. In chapter 13 I want to divide it into three sections. And we'll look at these three fairly briefly. First of all, in the first three verses, he talks about what I'm going to call loving activities. Then in verse four to verse seven to about loving attitudes. And then the last part, about loving aspirations. Firstly, about loving activities. If you know this section of scripture, he's been writing about spiritual gifts in the previous chapter. In fact, the God gives different gifts to different people for different functions, but they come from the same spirit and they all contribute to the same end.

As the body works together, they are supernatural and they energize the church. And having talked about that, he finishes that chapter by saying in chapter 12 verse 29, Are all apostles? The obvious answer is no, they're not all apostles. Some are Are all prophets? The answer would be no. Are all teachers? No. Do all work miracles? No. Do all have gifts of healing? No. Do all speak in tongues? No. Do all interpret? No. So I listed these various gifts. See then the answer some of them. So look, these are not for everybody. Different people have different gifts for different purposes, but they all work together as a body.

But he says when he finishes that, although these are all different, he says, eagerly desire the greater gifts. And then though these gifts are all good and necessary and supernatural, he says, And now I will show you a most excellent way. And what is that excellent way? It is love because then he says in verse one of chapter 13, If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong and just a clanging symbol and just a noise, an obnoxious noise at that. If this is without love.

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, if I have faith that can move mountains but have not love, impressive as all that faith and knowledge may appear. I am nothing, he said. In verse, if I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames but have not love, I gain nothing. All these qualities he's talked about in chapter 12 that are good, that are holy spirit enabled, that are supernatural in their function. If I exercise any or all of these apart from love, he says, I am nothing, I do nothing, I gain nothing.

When I was looking at this earlier in the week, I asked myself the question, how how would people and why would people do some of these things without love? I mean, he talks about if I give all I possess to the poor but have not love, I gain nothing. I mean, who's going to give all they possess to the poor? Unless there's some motivation of love and generosity. Surely. But actually we can give to the poor not as an expression of love, but an expression of our ego. It can be selfishly motivated because Jesus talked about that back in Matthew chapter six in verse two and he said, when you give to the needy, so that's the giving, that's the generosity, that's the kindness.

When you give to the needy, do not announce it with trumpets as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and on the street corners to be honored by men. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full. He says, when you give to the needy, don't give to the needy making sure other people know about it. The word hypocrite actually used to be a positive word. It's a negative word now. It was used for actors. They would have have facial masks, you know, and and they'd come on the the stage in a in a play and they would behind this mask and and run back and another mask.

And it was called oppositely hypocrisy. He might just say to somebody after show, man, you're a brilliant hypocrite today. It was excellent hypocrisy. It was acting, stage acting. Now it's become more negative in its connotations to us because what they're doing is stage acting. So they're going to give but there's nobody watching. So man, nobody's noticed. They give a trumpet. Oh oh, here they come. Here's my gift, my donation to you. And he said, it has absolutely no currency in heaven. They get no reward from heaven. They get reward in full right now, which is they think people think they're generous, but actually actually most people see through a phony.

So even that hasn't worked. Their motivations are reputation to be seen, to be known, and they carefully stage manage how they control their generosity for that purpose. There's a tragic example of this in the early church. Read it in Acts chapter four, then Acts chapter five. Barnabas, one of the he's my favorite character in the book of Acts. Actually Barnabas was a good man. He had some land in Cyprus and he sold it. And he took all the money that he got from the sale of that land and laid it at the apostles' feet in Jerusalem and said, this is for the furtherance of the gospel.

It was purely voluntary on his part, motivated purely by kindness and love. They were a married couple in the church in Jerusalem who saw this. They were impressed by it. And they're impressed by the way people loved Barnabas for his kindness and generosity. And so they agreed that they would sell some land. They would keep back some of the money, but present the money they gave as being the full value of the property. In other words, they would mimic Barnabas, externally meanwhile keeping something back. The husband, his name was Ananias, brought the money that agreed to give, brought it, laid it at the feet of the apostles as Barnabas had done, and said, this is money that we have gained from the sale of a piece of property.

We want to give it to the work of God and the spread of the kingdom. Well, Peter saw right through it. And Peter said, why did you decide to lie to us?

Guest (Male): Thanks for joining us today here on Telling the Truth. We pray today's message has helped you to experience life in all its fullness through Jesus Christ. Everyone experiences disappointments in life. And when things don't go the way we expect or desire, either tragically or in similar ways, discouragement can become entrenched as we begin to believe destructive thoughts like it's always going to be this way or I'll never overcome this. And when those thoughts are left unattended, they can lead you to despair and cause you to miss out on the abundant life Jesus promises. That's why we want to help you win the battle against feelings of discouragement by sending you Stuart and Jill Briscoe's five message series, Hope for the Disheartened.

In it, Stuart and Jill help you discover why your hope must be tied to trusting God and reliant on his strength and timing. You'll learn that even in trouble times, you have a God who loves you and gives you every reason to look forward with unspeakable peace, hope, and joy. The Hope for the Disheartened series is our thanks for your gift to help more people experience life through the teaching and resources of Telling the Truth. So request your copy when you give today. 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org. Thanks for being here today.

Come back next time for more biblical truth to help you experience life in Christ. Join us again here on Telling the Truth.