Let a man do whatever religious thing he wishes, it means nothing without love. Love is the greatest of God’s gifts. Love is deeper than emotions.
Love is the God-given proof that you are Christ’s disciples (John 13:35). This is a message about the future but it is also a map for the present. Since the future is not something we are permitted to see directly – only God sees the end from the beginning – in order to this sermon to be anything other than an exercise in conceit, it has to be based squarely on what God as revealed in His Word.
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:1-13).
“For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face…” (1 Corinthians 13:12a).
The objects we see are far away in the distance and we are near-sighted. We need biblical spectacles in order to see the future clearly. The Bible has a great deal to say about the future. It predicts a time when predatory beasts become herbivores and little kids are playing with cobras. I want to take your minds and hearts on a whistle-stop tour of heaven this morning. I do so in order to help us to better see that heaven is in fact a world of love. Every religious person and many nonreligious sooner or later ask, “What will heaven be like?”
My purpose this morning is not to answer the traditional questions as much as to color in the lines of heaven in what the citizens of heaven will do and what we will be. C. S. Lewis once remarked that it’s odd that we do not capitalize heaven when we write the word in a sentence. Is it because we don’t think it is a real place? Thinking about heaven presents difficulties but it excites the mind.
1. What Is Heaven?
The Bible in these verses gives us three metaphors for heaven: Heaven is called “perfect” in verse ten. Heaven is called a “face” in verse twelve.
And heaven is called “love” in verse thirteen. You can see what Paul is doing more clearly by looking at verse nine: “For we know in part and we prophesy in part…” (1 Corinthians 13:9a). He’s talking about now versus later. He’s talking about time versus eternity. He is talking about eternity. He says, “but when the perfect comes,” he uses a word that we get our word for telescope. It’s a word to signify a designed end. He is talking about the ultimate fulfillment of design. There is a place where we become all that we are designed for. “When the perfect comes” refers to heaven.
It’s the final destination and ultimate fulfillment of God’s plan. And “when the perfect comes,” we discover that love never fails.
You were made to love and to be loved.
The Center of Heaven is God Himself. God is everywhere and He fills heaven and earth. Yet, God is especially more present in some places than others.
And heaven is just such a place. Heaven is God’s palace. And because “God is love” heaven is place where love overflows (1 John 4:8). Because “God is love,” think of God’s love as He were a fountain where love overflows continually. Picture Him as a fountain outside of a posh hotel where love is continually produced… where love never ends. God is the fountain of heaven of heaven where love overflows in streams and rivers of love. “God is the fountain of love, as the sun is the fountain of light.” And because heaven is His palace, He makes a heaven a world of love. And because God is both loving and infinite, His love is infinite, His love is all-sufficient.
We were designed to be loving and selfless but this is no longer so. Sin has made us deeply selfish creatures. Christ’s redemption produces within us a real opportunity to no longer be consumed with ourselves. From the cross of Christ emerges a love for sinners. Those who embrace the cross of Christ look beyond their own self-interests to the interests of others. We no longer have to be consumed with ourselves. We no longer need to suffocate ourselves.
We have been changed by love in order to love.
2. Heaven’s Love is Pure
“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13)
As important as faith and hope are, they are no more than scaffolding for the permanent building of love. Faith and hope are means to the end… means to the end of love. Faith and hope are temporary scaffolding in comparison to love.
Love is permanent. Today our heart aches for pure taste of love that our mouths have only tasted in imperfect ways. Every person in heaven’s society is without blemish and pure. Because of this, love reigns supreme throughout heaven. Most of the love in this world is marred by sin despite our most noble attempts. In heaven, love operates with corruption. In heaven, love moves without selfishness and meanness. In heaven, it’s citizens, love God for His own sake. In heaven, it’s citizens, love one another for God’s sake.
Free from the selfishness that suffocates them, heaven’s citizens are free to truly love for the first timesince the Garden of Eden. You’ll find no malice there. Nor will you locate revenge or contempt or envy or selfishness. No one is slighted in heaven. In heaven, love is always mutual. The love you offer to another is always returned as love to you.
Heaven’s love is absent of any flattery or pretense. The love in heaven is never dampened by jealousy.Nor is love interrupted by suspicion of another’s person love for anyone else. Those we love in heaven will never be separated from one another as we are on earth. We will be a happy family together as one. The people of heaven are loving because the cross of Christ has made them loving. God is an engine of love and He makes His followers loving. Today, you only have a taste of heaven through the cross of Christ, but “when the perfect comes” this glimpse will be high definition for all to enjoy.
3. What Difference Does This Make Now?
Yet, this isn’t just a message of hope for the future.
It impacts our lives now. To know of God’s infinite fountain of love in the future impacts you now. To know of the citizens of heaven’s pure love for one another changes us today. How? Times flies when we are with the people we love. For love is from eternity. When parents ask a teenager, “Where are you going?” They respond in the simplest of terms, “Out.” They want to be with the people they care about.
Heaven isn’t boring. Receiving love and giving love is never boring. Heaven is a world of love. To be in heaven is to be loved. To compare the greatest love you have experienced on earth is to compare an oil rag to a wedding dress. If our appetites are whetted for a future in heaven, then we should strive for heaven’s perfect love now. Love is the trademark of biblical Christianity.
Whenever Christians are full of envy and strife, it obscures the evidence of heaven. When those who follow Christ show jealousy, selfishness, and hatred for others, their own lives are diminished. The clouds of hatred darken the evidence of Heaven’s love for us. Your attitude of hatred ruins your appetite for the banquet of heaven’s love. Your lack of forgiveness towards others dampens the sweet foretaste of heaven. Heaven’s love doesn’t attract you as it should.
A Warning to Those Outside of Christ
When those outside of Christ see contention inside Christian families, the motivation for heaven is obscured. And while heaven is the palace of God’s love in its purest form… Hell is a world of hatred. There are no friendships in hell. Where God’s love reigns supreme in heaven, God’s wrath is left unchecked in hell.
What About Now? “But our citizenship is in heaven…” (Philippians 3:20a). Today if you are a follower of Jesus Christ, you have a foretaste of heaven’s pleasures. You do not enjoy it to its fullest extent at this time, but you have gotten a taste of it. You can think of heaven as a city of light fixed atop of high hill. This city of light is a city of love. You’ll pass through numerous difficulties along the way. There is no arriving in heaven without traveling uphill.
The journey is tiring, yet it is worth your will. But when you arrive there at last, the city set on a hill offers sweet rest.
