Eternally Improving Your Love Report Series

Living in Chapter 13 and Loving It (Part 4 of 4)

Eternally Improving Your Love Rating

1 Cor. 13:8:13

Feb. 25, 2007 FBC, Chester Mike Fogerson, Pastor

Introduction:

A Ancient mirrors were not precise, nor did they give perfect reflections.

1 Science was not there to produce the mirrors we have today.

a Corinth made the best mirrors (polished metal). Equivalent of Amish & furniture, Chicago & pizza, or Louisiana & good cooking.

b Paul used the ancient mirror to illustrate the fact that right now we only see a dim reflection of God.

aa We haven’t seen Him face to face, we don’t know Him as intimately as He knows us.

bb We have a complete (perfect) revelation of God in His Word (which is to say He’s told us all He wanted to tell us), but our understanding of that revelation is partial this side of the second coming, or this side of eternity.

2 In a dim mirror you can’t really notice all the details or subtleties of a true reflection.

a Hair is "fairly" decent, makeup is halfway straight, trim your mustache or beard semi-evenly.

b You hit the high spots.

B Paul has pointed out several high spots in the mirror of Chapter 13.

1 v. 1-3: loving bankruptcy (you can have tongues, prophecy, generosity, but without love, nothing).

2 v. 4-7: rebuild a bad love report (patient/takes its time, kind/plays nice, humble/over itself, courteous/gives up seat, forgiving/long fuse & short memory, endures/isn’t going anywhere).

3 In our final lesson in the "Living in Chapter 13 & Loving It" series we’ll study how Paul told believers that there were certain characteristics that they should have seen in their mirrors (essence of the text in a sentence).

a Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away. 11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully just as I also have been fully known. 13 But now faith, hope, love, abide these three; but the greatest of these is love. 1 Cor 13:8-13 (NASB)

b Believers can practice things in the temporal that will affect their eternity (essence of the sermon in a sentence).

C I pray you’ll decide to try to make the person you see in the mirror look more like Jesus (objective).

1 Who will commit to reading 1 Cor. 13 one time a week for the next three months? (Probing question)

2 Let’s look at two things that can help us make the person in the mirror look more like Jesus (transitional sentence).

3 Pray

I The first thing that can help us make the person in the mirror look more like Jesus is to acknowledge that right now will not last past right now. Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away.

A Paul’s audience were holding on to the temporal like it would last forever.

1 He (Paul) exposed what the people in Corinth held dear for what it really was (done away, cease, temporary).

a "Prophecy...will be done away..."

aa The prophet was a ministry of honor (respected like a doctor or professor). God spoke though them.

bb When a prophet died, the people couldn’t wait for the next one to rise up!

cc Paul says prophecy will be done away. TRUE!

dd My Bible is full of prophecies that have been completed, done away! Their work’s done.

ee They fuel my faith now, but they’re completed, that prophecy has been done away.

b "Tongues, they will cease..."

aa The gift of tongues was sought, bragged about at Corinth. Paul said, "They’ll stop."

bb From about the 3rd century to 1905 they were silent, then a resumption of tongues.

cc "Tongues die." Latin, Koina Greek, our English is vastly different from what the colonist spoke.

c "Knowledge, it will de done away."

aa You can go to a rummage sale & buy a whole set of encyclopedias for $10 that cost hundreds when they were new. Why? Knowledge is done away with.