Timothy Keller Sermons Podcast by Gospel in Life - Love and the Practical Graces

Episode Date: October 2, 2026

The city of Corinth was a place of commerce. Nobody went there except to be successful. It was built from scratch just a few decades before Paul’s letter was written. There were not old families and traditions. This was a place that attracted an unusually resourceful, talented, ambitious, intense kind of person. And right into this culture, Paul says, “I don’t care how rich or talented you are. If you’re irritable, impatient, selfish, self-centered, self-pitying, driven and anxious, you have nothing. Don’t say, ‘I just have a few personal issues to deal with.’ You have nothing.” Paul says character is everything. And so what is inner love and joy? What is the inner supernatural change in character that God can bring? In 1 Corinthians 13, we see 1) two things that heart character is not, and 2) one thing that it is. This sermon was preached by Dr. Timothy Keller at Redeemer Presbyterian Church on January 13, 2002. Series: Practical Grace; How the Gospel Transforms Character. Scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:1-8. Today's podcast is brought to you by Gospel in Life, the site for all sermons, books, study guides and resources from Timothy Keller and Redeemer Presbyterian Church. If you've enjoyed listening to this podcast and would like to support the ongoing efforts of this ministry, you can do so by visiting https://gospelinlife.com/give and making a one-time or recurring donation.

Welcome to Gospel and 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're ultimately done out of self-interest. Today, Tim Keller explores how the gospel transforms us completely, even our motivations, making us people who love and serve others in response to God's grace for us. 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 symbol.

If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have 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.

Now the passage that you just heard read is a very famous passage. It's usually read or is often read at weddings. And when it's red, or whenever it's red, especially when it's red then, the response of the hearers is usually something like this. I want you to know, that's not what Paul meant to say. and 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's some bombshells in this that are just astonishing. Corinth, of all the cities of the ancient world, of all the cities of the Greco-Roman world,

Corinth is probably the most like New York. And that's an interesting thing to be. consider while we look at this. Carman's was a place of commerce and nobody lived there, nobody went there except to be successful. Nobody went there to have a life. It was a little place on an isthmus between four mile isthmus between two bodies of water. Anyone who had to transport goods had to go through it. Perfect place for commerce. It was built from scratch just a few decades before this letter was written. And therefore, people who lived there, I didn't live there because there so much

because it was a native population or there were not old families, there weren't traditions. It was a place where people came to make it. And as a result, it attracted an unusually resourceful, an unusually talented, an unusually ambitious, and unusually intense kind of person.

And that's why we're not surprised that in the church of Karin, We have a population of Christians that in many ways reflect the population and the culture. And you see, I mean, I think it's not that hard to tell, even right off the top. Verse 3, 1 to 3, Paul is talking about what they already have. He says, look, you might have this, and you might have this, and you might have this, you might have this, so you have this, so you have this, so you have this. He's really saying, so what?

But verses 1 to 3 is describing what they're like. They're very gifted. prophecy, communication, faith that moves mountains, leadership, we'll get to that in a second, fathom all mysteries, they're brilliant, there's teachers, there's scholars, they're gifted, they're talented, but Paul says the important thing is verses four to seven, and those are all the things, and this isn't the reason why the Corinthians, when they first heard this, were not inspired. Because if you read the whole book of first Corinthians, if you read the whole letter, you'll know that every, every Greek word that shows up practically every Greek word in verses

four to seven has already been used earlier in the book where Paul was criticizing them for their disputing and their fighting and their fractiousness and their party spirit and all the problems that they're having in this church. In other words, verses four to seven is a list of all the things that the Corinthians are not. So they were in it. Paul wasn't sitting there saying, well what should I what should I say about love love is patient it's kind no well here's very very simple he's saying you are the most talented group of people and yet when it comes to your actual character your doing is great your being stinks your giftedness is great but your character isn't much and of course one of the reasons for this is because not just currents but in new york all big cities

all the emphasis is on being a professional. And what's being a professional? Being a professional is, I don't care what you are in your private world, I don't care how you are in your personal life, I don't care who you are in your innermost heart. Professionals, you just seal that off and you don't let that change you, you perform.

All the emphasis is on performing and productiveness, and it's almost understood that the most talented and the most brilliant people in New York are the most troubled and they're the most angry and they're the most temperamental and the most vain and they're the most messed up on the inside. And here's what Paul says. Paul, 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 got nothing. Don't say, well, I'm a successful person. I just got a few personal issues. a deal. You got nothing. You are nothing. So he comes right at it. It says character is everything. Not ability, not talent, not achievement, character. You know, it's a, I don't know, we still have it around, but there was even a way of making fun of people who did not have the looks and did not have the character, did not have the ability, did not have a lot of talent. We used to say he or she had a nice personality. In other words, if they were nice people, if they were kind people,

if they were generous, if they were undriven, but they weren't talented. they made fun of them. And Paul's reversing that. Now, the whole subject of virtue and character is one that in our culture, there's a great amount of storm and drong about. On the one hand, everybody says character is important. On the other hand, nobody can agree as to what it is,

or whether it's important or how it's important, or which virtues are the ones that we think are virtues. A lot of the culture wars is head-banging about this subject. And what I want to see tonight, and as we go on, because this is the beginning of a new series, but what the Bible says about heart character doesn't really fit in any of the categories. As an introduction tonight, we're going to ask this question. What is heart character? What is the, what is inner love and joy?

What is the inner supernatural change in character that God can bring? and what we have tonight are two negatives and a positive. We're going to see this text in some ways tells us two things that heart character is not and then one thing it is. Two things it's not, one thing it is. Two things it's not. First of all, if we're going to understand something, it's always good to say what it's not, you know,

to see it by way of negation. First of all, character, inner heart character, is not the same thing at all as being gifted. And here Paul really drops a bombshell. It's in verse two. And I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. Now, let me show you what those three things are, for example. First of all, faith that can move mountains, almost every commentator thinks, every commentator I checked, and I checked on them all just about, says that Paul wouldn't be speaking this way about saving faith.

He wouldn't be talking about the kind of faith that relates you to God. He's talked, faith that moves mountains is a leadership gift. Faith that Move Mountains, what is leadership? Leadership is the ability to get a group of people who otherwise would not be able to surmount a particular obstacle to do so. You're able to, it's 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's direct revelation from God, fathoming the mysteries.

Now, let me show you, let me just, let me show you how astonishing this is. Paul is saying, God could have made you a great leader in the church, have helped all hundreds, thousands of people through you, and may have given direct revelation right to you. Real revelation. These aren't false prophets. This isn't a false prophet in verse two. This is a real prophet. Real prophecy, direct revelation from God to you through, through you to the world. and so God is saying you could be a, God could have used it as a great leader. God could have, you know, given you spirit of prophecy. God could have used you miraculously put, done miracles through you and you not be a Christian at all.

That's what verse 2 is saying. You can have all that and be spiritually nothing. He says, you could have all that and it's still be possible that you'd be spiritual. spiritually nothing. When he says, I am nothing, he's not just talking in some kind of rhetorical insult. He's not just saying you're nothing. He's talking, what is, he's saying you could be spiritually zero, nothing at all. Jonathan Edwards in his sermon, a sermon on this, and Edwards was a minister and a leading philosopher, one of the great American philosophers lived 200 years ago, and he said this about this text, and it's astounding. He says, many bad men, he's just reading the

Bible. 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 and cast out devils and in thy name driven out and done many wonderful works? By the way, the word wonderful works is the word that means miracles. So on the last day, it says Matthew 721. In Matthew 721 says in the last day Jesus is going to meet people who said, we prophesied, we preached, we got revelation from you, we did miracles from you. And God, Jesus, is going to say to many of them, I never knew you. And Edwards goes on and says, It's 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, as it were, the preciousness of the heart itself, by which the soul becomes a precious jewel through the Spirit of God. Now, so different are talent and gifts from supernatural grace and character growth in the heart that it's possible to actually do miracles through the power of God and not be a Christian at all, or being an incredibly weak Christian. Put another way, it's possible to give your, It's possible to give your talents to the service of God and not give your heart to God. It's 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. Or it's possible to have done it very, very poorly and very, very weakly and very, very little. So different is being gifted from spiritual growth. in grace and spiritual character. Now, two questions always arise at this point, always. First question, which comes first, and it's the easiest one to answer, I have people always say to me, well, if that's true, my word, 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? Why would God do that? And the answer is because God's a very kind and loving person. and just think of what a crummy world would be if only mature Christians were the people who could counsel and could help and could teach and could think about it. God's just very helpful. I mean, he's just very loving. He just cares about everybody. What kind of world would it be? But here's the better question. Another question that comes is, how is it possible? How is it possible for people to be incredible leaders, to have the gift of prophecy, to do incredible things in the lives of other

people and have very little grace in their own life, hardly any, or none at all. How is it possible? I'll tell you how it possible it is. Very simple. And this is a great warning, and I know that this is some of you, this is the main thing you're going to have to take away tonight. It was possible then, but it's more possible now than ever, that you mistake your talent for character. Do you got that? You mistake, well, the way the old Puritans used to put it is you mistake a gift operation of the Holy Spirit from an operation of grace or fruit and holiness in the heart. You mistake gifts for grace, but I put it this way, you mistake your talent and your achievements for character.

It's very simple. Let me give you a quick example. Imagine a man who hates his mother, just hates her. And it doesn't even know quite how much he hates her, but it's passed into his heart. And it's distorting his character. Wow. how? Well, there's all sorts of ways, and I don't want to go too much into this as a little

psychological case. So, for example, maybe all of his, it can really distort his relationships with women, but I'd say here's the more likely thing. When you have that kind of bad, unresolved relationship with a parent, there is a ground note of self-pity that just permeates your life. It's like a bass note, no offense to bass players, but you know, bass notes, you feel them more than you hear them. You know that? You don't really even hear. hear them. You sense them. They're almost impossible to hear. You feel them. And there are people who have these very, very deep ground notes of self-pity that run through their lives and they don't even realize that there's a little part of their heart that's constantly, constantly saying,

nothing ever goes well for me. Nothing ever goes right for me. Yep, there it goes. That's the way things are. That's how it always is with me. After what she did to me and I never had this and I never had that. That's the way it is. Now, when you have that kind of ground note, you realize, for example, example, maybe this guy has trouble with his temper. He tends to go off too soon. Maybe he just gets downcast too quickly. He's not resilient. When bad things happen, he doesn't know how to bounce back. And it's all because of this ground note. And then he becomes a Christian. And what happens? Well, one thing you can do is the very, very hard work of character change in which you not only with the new sense, as we're going to see in a minute, of God's love, you have finally got the

emotional wealth. You've got enough affirmation. You can admit things about yourself for the first time. And 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, let's just say, in this guy's situation, instead of bringing the love of God in Christ in a sustained, way into his heart, sensing the love of God in Christ into his heart at the moments when self-pity rears up so as to absorb it, so as to destroy it, so as to erode it, so as to really change his character. Instead of that, what's going to happen is going to come to church, and next thing you know, we find out this person has a great public speaking gift, and next thing you know, the person's

teaching. Now, there's something about gifts that's interesting. You walk into a room, as I say, if you're a teacher, and there's something about the situation that draws out the teaching gift, and next thing you know, you're teaching, and you're doing well, and God's using you, and the people are helped. The next thing you know, you sense that you're doing something right for them. They tell you how great you are, and what do we all assume? He's 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 a at all. We constantly mistake talent for character. And that's 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. And so that's it. So what do we say? The first thing Paul is trying to say is it's possible to do, do, do, do, do, and be nothing. They have all this doing, all this doing, all this doing, all this doing. doing this, I'm doing this, I'm doing this, I'm doing this, and still be nothing. How do you like that? So you ought to look at yourself, everybody. You ought to say, am I hiding behind the good things I'm doing for people and the way people say, oh, you help 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 am 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, that we're going to spend the next 10 weeks looking at aspects of a really changed heart so that we can't wriggle out from underneath and hide from ourselves. Secondly, the second thing we learn here is not just that the inner heart character is not being gifted. The second thing we learn is not just being good. Because verse three gives us another little list, and it's a different list. Look at verse three.

Now it's another list. He starts over. 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's almost like Paul here is adopting. different voice. Or, I mean, listening to a different voice. It's almost like in verse three, he's answering a different kind of person. Maybe there's a person who says, yeah, see verse two, I agree.

Prophecy and leadership and speakers and all that, all those gifts and talents that, you know, that basically have to do with glitz and effect and success and all that. That's not what we need. What we need is what? See, verse three is responding to a person. person says that what we really need is not talents because there are no talents in here. Give all I possess to the poor and give my body to the flames. We're talking about moral virtuous behavior.

So, for example, give all to the poor. That's generosity and a social conscience. But more than that, give all to the poor, which means here's 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, and surrender my body of the flames. Here's somebody who's willing to so be committed, a person of such integrity, that I'm going to live for my values, even if it costs me my life. There's integrity.

There's honesty. Dying for the faith. What's interesting about this list is it unites the sort of liberal and conservative sorts of virtue lists. If you ask the liberal-type person, you know, what are the lists of virtues? A conservative-type person, they always come up with somewhat different lists. but that unites them here. He has social justice, on the one hand, you know, care for the poor.

And on the other hand, dying for the faith, you know. But Paul says, again, he takes the virtue list, and he slams it just like he did the gift list. He says, you could have all that, and it still be nothing. Now, this is very confusing, extremely confusing. You start to ask yourself, the question, what do you mean here? Everybody says, okay, I understand gifts don't matter, but what matters is virtuous behavior, but here's what Paul's doing, and it's amazing.

Paul is going deep. And he's pointing out that the virtuous, Aristotle's virtuous, you know, I just looking this up, you know, this before coming over here, courage, liberality, generosity, same thing, honesty, friendliness, modesty, justice, prudence. The old virtuous, all the virtuous lists, if you look carefully, you'll see, you're still not down to the heart level. Because these are behaviors that could be done for two very different kinds of heart motives. Two very different kinds of heart motives. What are they, what, and Paul is saying, it's possible to be incredibly virtuous, sacrificing your time, sacrificing your money, sacrificing your life for other people.

And see, that's not talking about talent, but just commitment and still be nothing. Now, how could that be? And there's two secrets to understand what he means. First of all, notice he doesn't say this time, am nothing. He says, I gain nothing. And the word gain is a word that means, literally it means to count. It could be translated, it could do it all and you still don't count, or you don't merit anything, you don't earn anything.

And he says, and this is where people really say, how could this possibly be? He says, you could be giving your body away for, you could die for somebody, you could sacrifice your money for somebody, you could sacrifice your time for somebody, and it be without love. Well, you say, my goodness, how do you define love then? Well, look, Pride and Prejudice. Great book. And a great mini-series, six hours long. I must say, I loved it.

On the other hand, I've found a little bit surprising. I've yet to find a male who's watched the whole thing. Except me, so I'm trying to figure this out. But anyway, in the book, those of you who ever saw any of the movie or the book, you'll know that the middle sister of the five Bennett sisters is Mary. And Mary is, in some ways, the one who's the most overtly Christian. Because she's always lecturing everybody about their Christian duty. She's always talking about Christian charity and Christian loyalty.

And she's always telling them that they have to tell the truth and be honest. And she seems to be the most moral, the most virtuous of them all. But Jane Austen, very sardonically and shrewdly, says this about her. This won't come out in the movies, of course, because you don't have the narrator, but the voice of the narrator is in the book. And this is what she says about Mary. She says, Mary, in consequence of being the only plain one in the family, you know, the most unattractive of all the women,

Mary, in consequence of being the only plain one in the family, worked especially hard for knowledge and accomplishments of which she was impatient for display. It gave her a pedantic air and a conceited manner. How would your life change if you no longer had to prove yourself to anyone? We often live as though our value depends on our accomplishments, the opinions of others, or whether we're meeting our own expectations, leaving us trapped in a cycle of trying to measure up.

In his short book, The Freedom of Self-Forgatefulness, based on a sermon from 1st Corinthians 3, Tim Keller explains how the gospel offers a completely different foundation for our identity, one that's free from insecurity and pride, and that allows us to rest in God's complete acceptance. This month, as thanks for your gift to help Gospel in Life spread the transforming love of Christ with more people, will send you two English copies of the freedom of self-forgetfulness, and one Spanish copy that you can share with a Spanish speaker in your life.

Request your copies today at gospelonlife.com slash give. That's gospelonlife.com slash give. Now here's Dr. Keller with the rest of today's teaching. Now, you see what she's saying? whenever Mary, Jane Austen says, whenever Mary is talking to people about Christian truth and Christian loyalty, trying to tell her sisters how to be good people, why is she doing it? Why? What's the heart? It's not about truth. It's not about honesty. It's not about Christianity. It's not about God. And it's not even about our sisters. It's about her. She feels inadequate. She feels she doesn't count.

She feels plain. She feels average or below her. average. And so what's she going to do? She's going to be a good person. And this is exactly what Paul's talking about. Paul actually says here, if you do good things, I'm even going to put it this way, behaviorally loving things. In other words, loving things in a sense of serving people and ministering to people and all that, if you do good things, to get a sense of worth, to say, I count, now I know I'm somebody, to get a sense of worth, they're worthless. And they're worthless. I'm just being pejorative when I say they're worthless. They don't please God. They don't enhance your own character and they don't help anybody else. You say, why could that be? Okay, let's take a common

sense definition of love. Common sense definition of love is to serve other people instead of yourself, serve somebody else instead of yourself. Here's my question. If the reason you're kind to somebody, if the reason you're generous to somebody, even to this, even if you're, even if you're incredibly generous to people, if you're doing it to count, if you're doing it to say, now I know God will love me and or, now I can know that I'm a good person and or, now people will see me as being a kind and generous person, it's about you. It's about you. There's no love in it. It's possible. See, Paul's wise about this. He's right about this. It's possible to be loving without love, loving in your behavior, and in your own heart, it's all about you, all about you. And if that's true,

how do we know that's true? How do you know if your service to other people and your busyness and all that sort of, all the things you're doing is really about you? And not about God, not about the person, not about truth, but about you. How do you know? Well, there's two things the text tells us you can look for to see whether it's true or to the degree it's true. By the way, that little phrase is important. This is not an either-or thing. I personally believe that to some degree, we all got a problem with this.

The two possibilities are, no matter how good you look and what a great ministry you have, and no matter how strong and dedicated and kind and benevolent a person everybody thinks you are, Two things. Number one, A, this list. Notice this doesn't say love doesn't murder, love doesn't rape, love doesn't rob banks. You notice that's not, that's the Ten Commandments. This is more subtle.

This is character. This is stuff that, this is stuff below the rules. This is stuff below behavior. This is how you are with people in private. You can give your money away. You can be, you can be honoring all the rules. you can be this incredibly good person in so many ways. And yet, do you find your, are you impatient with people? Do you get irritable? Are you harsh? Are you vain? Are you self-centered?

Are you driven? Are you always getting your feelings hurt? People who know you in private can see it. Your service is not being driven by love. Your moral virtue is not being driven by love. It's about you. Second thing, and here's the, this is the worst in some way. The second thing Paul says is that there's a kind of loveless

service and goodness. And the best way, the final test of it is the very last verse. Real love, real love that's not based in you, doesn't give up. Literally, by the way, it says, it says real love doesn't fall down, doesn't fall apart. And let me give you two examples that are kind of, I know they're painful. Paul is saying that it's possible to be in what look like incredibly loving, loving relationships, yet it's all about you. And he says, the way you're going to know whether it's all about you is that sometimes these relationships where you have all this love and this tremendous feeling for this person, you're doing so much, and all of a sudden, it's over. It turns to disdain, it turns to hate like that, or at least indifference like that. I'll give you

two perfect examples. I mean, they're painful examples because they happen so often. In a family, in which one person is a drug addict or an alcoholic, if you have a spouse who's got a drug addict or alcoholic, and then the other spouse is not, we all, maybe certainly a lot of you know about this, you get into a situation in which over the years, the healthy spouse is just sacrificing for the unhealthy spouse, suffering for the unhealthy spouse,

doing so much an unhealthy spouse, and it's painful, the sacrifices, the pain is just terrible. And the healthy spouse looks at, the helping spouse looks at the messed up person and says, you don't know how much I love you. I've done this for years for you on there. And the healthy spouse is constantly feeling loving and giving loving.

Research shows a shockingly high percentage of times if that addict gets over it. If the alcoholic gets sober, if the drug addict gets off the drugs, and that person gets over it, that the marriage falls apart, a surprisingly high number of times. Many of you have heard that statistic. In other words, why? Why? Why would the healthy spouse, supposedly, suddenly find it difficult to connect or love the person who's messed up? because the relationship was about, who was it about? The need to be a savior, the need to be

needed, the need to be indispensable. And this incredible love you had for this person, you say, I must really love him or her. Look what I'm doing for him or her. Look what I've gone through. Look at the depths to which I've gone. Look at how I'm just constantly sacrificing, giving and giving and giving and all of a sudden the person gets better and the love's gone. Who was it about? or two people, let me just give you the other very painful example, two people fall madly in love and you sound just utterly in love and the years go by and one of you loses looks, gains weight, looks different. And next thing you know, the marriage falls apart. Who was the love about? What was it about? If you say, well, he or she's changed, they don't look very good anymore and you

suddenly find yourself straying to other people. Basically, in your mind and your thought, basically what you've done, it's really rather simple. That person met a need, the need to be, to feel like I've got a person who looks like that. That's the kind of spouse I've got, that's the kind of lover I've got. That person was meeting

a need, and when they stopped meeting a need, that love failed, but it wasn't love. It was it all about you. Paul says, do not mistake being good, being virtuous, being sacrificial, being committed for a really changed heart by God. It's possible to do all of that and have no love. You begin to see why the Corinthians were reading this thing and they

weren't going, you aren't either, I notice. So now there's two things it's not. Being, inner heart character is not being gifted and it's not just being good. Then what is it? It's being great. There's three Gs here, by the way, for those of you who want to remember it. It's not being gifted, not being good, it's being graced. What do I mean by being graced? Well, first, number one, an inner character comes from a complete change in the way we approach God. And we see that in verse one. 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.

Now, you know, the other two sentences end with the word am nothing, gain nothing. what's this gong and symbol stuff? Most commentators say, almost certainly, well, they believe it's a really pretty good chance that Paul is talking about something that Corinthians would know about that you and I wouldn't, and that is that that's what temple worship, the pagan gods, that's how their worship went.

They did not have simple worship. Their worship was a spectacle. And they had gongs, and they had symbols, and they had all sorts of enormous, you might say epic pageantry because the whole point behind pagan religion and worship was the god or the gods had to be impressed the god god's attention and favor had to be attracted and merited and if that's the case then what paul is saying is a fascinating thing really fascinating he is saying it's possible to get into christianity into the church and do the prophesying and fathom the mysteries and read the bible

and lead and do all these great things and obey the Ten Commandments, say I'm going to study the Bible and be doing it without having fundamentally changed your relationship with God. It's still like a pagan. In other words, you can read your Bible and go to your Bible studies and talk to other people about Jesus and all that sort of stuff as a way of clanging a symbol and sounding a gong. As a way of saying, look, I count. Look, don't you want to bless me? Look. And Paul is saying, it's possible. to really get very Christian-y and not become a Christian. To get kind of involved in it and not recognize the absolutely fundamental, diametrically

opposite way that Christianity works from every other religion in the way you approach God. And that's why he says how incredibly easy it is to be like in pagan religion, coming in saying, I'm going to do all these things so that I will count for God. Well, what's the implication? The implication is you're supposed to count and know you count with God and know who you are before you do it. You're not supposed to be out there helping other people as a way of meeting some inner vacuum that you have,

but in response not to an emptiness, but in response to a fullness. Well, then the second question then is, well, how do you do that? How do you do that? And the answer is, and you know, this is a shame because I never want to give people the sense that you can't read the Bible for yourself. But almost all English translations, not just this one, but almost all English translations from verses four to seven give you adjectives. Notice this one?

Pretty much. Love is patient. Love is kind. It's not rude. Do you know that everything in verses four to seven is very strikingly, very start a set of verbs. Because what's happening in verses 4 to 7 is Paul very strikingly is personifying love. In fact, here's a better translation I got out of one commentary. This is a little closer to what it says. Love suffers a long time with patience. Love shows kindness. Love does not burn with envy.

It does not get inflated with its own importance. It is never rude and ill-mannered. Rather, Love joyfully celebrates truth, gives all kinds of support, never loses faith, never exhausts hope, never gives up. In other words, Paul is deliberately not giving us a set of guidelines, an adjective saying, if you want to be a loving person, be like that. I know that's how we read it. I know that's how we always think it means, what it means. But he's actually giving us a person here. He is showing us a person who is love itself.

Love is patient, suffers long. He's personifying love, and there's two reasons he's doing that, because he's really answering the question, okay, how in the world then? How in the world, if being good and being gifted, how in the world do you have this incredible inner sense of fullness that sends me out in a whole new way in the world to do things, not out of a sense of emptiness, but out of a sense of fullness, not doing it because it's about me, but because it's about them,

because of the people out there instead of being about me. How does that happen? Paul says, you have to see love is a person. And that means two things. One general and one specific. One general is this. Paul says, you will never be a loving person if you think that love is a set of guidelines that you somehow have to pick up and breathe life into.

Oh, no. Love is a living active power that has to get a hold of you and breathe life into you. love is a power. Love is a personal, living, active power. It has to come into you, it has to encounter you, it has to come upon you. Otherwise, you'll never be able to do this. That's the general. But the specific reason he puts love as a person is because he's thinking of somebody. And again, it's not that hard if you read the whole book of First Corinthians through. Of course, that's the trouble with pulling out a slice and giving it to you.

But my job as the teacher is to read this text in the context of the whole passage, the whole book of First Corinthians, and here's what you see if you read it all. In the very beginning of First Corinthians, Paul immediately deals with all these terrible character flaws in these Christian men and women's lives. They're fighting and there's jealousy and there's envy and there's strife and there's bickering. And in the very beginning, he immediately says, you're forgetting the cross. He says, how can you be so proud if you remember the cross?

And he says, how can you be so emotionally needy if you remember the cross? And in the very beginning, he says, he says, some of you are saying, I'm on Paul's party, and someone's saying, I'm a Peter's party. Was Paul crucified for you? Did Peter die for your sins? This is in 1st Corinthians 1 and 2.

And see what he's doing? He is saying, you're never going to become a, loving person just by trying to live up to a series of, you know, of descriptors, behavioral descriptors. He says, think of the cross. He says, if you are ever angry and spiteful and impatient and fighting, you have forgotten on the one hand, the cross humbles me and says, look, how can I be proud when it took the death of the Son of God to save me? But secondly, the cross lives. lists me up and says, look, how can I ever be so emotionally needy? Why do I need, why do I care what people think? Why do I need a claim? Why do I need to show that I'm right? When the son of God

himself died for me. So Paul starts in the beginning of First Corinthians to say, I'm going to, the only way to deal with your character flaws to see the cross. Well, here is First Corinthians 13. Oh, isn't this weird? Here's Paul and he's not mentioning the cross at all. He's dealing with their problems about the cross. Oh, really? Where is the ultimate example of suffering patiently? My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? Charles Spurgeon says, on the cross, Jesus Christ, completely embodying this love, look down at people he was dying for, completely embodying the opposite, and he stayed. Where do you see the ultimate example of, the ultimate example of, does not keep a record of wrongs.

The cross. Father forgive them. They don't know what they're doing. Where do you say the ultimate example of love never giving up? Father let this cut pass from me. Nevertheless, not my will but thine be done. And here's the key. If you see verses 4 to 7 first,

as a guide for your behavior, you'll never get there. But if you see this, not as a love that you have to do first, but a love that was done for you and to you first. If you see him pouring himself into you, that's going to change everything. Jonathan Edwards, in his sermon on this, gave a definition of love that I've never gotten over.

He says, let me give you a definition of love. Let me give you a definition of love. He says, love is putting your happiness in the happiness of the other one. putting your happiness in if I love somebody in order to make me make myself happy in this way I love you

and that makes me happy because now I've got this great looking spouse I love you and that makes me happy because now I'm needed I love you and that makes me happy because now I can think of myself as a loving person I love you and now God will take me to heaven

or at least answer my prayers I love you And Jonathan Edwards says, none of that's love. It's all about you. But here's what, he says love is, is when you put your happiness in the happiness of another person, so the other person's happiness is the only happiness you have. It's the person's joy that is your joy. There is no other joy that you want. The person's happiness and progress and delight is your delight. And there's nothing else. You say, man, that's incredible. Where am I going to get that? Common sense tells you you can never produce that, but you could pass along if you've already gotten it from somewhere else.

What do you get a man who has everything? Jesus own the whole universe. So what if Jesus Christ comes down and looks at you and says, I'm about to die for you? And what would you say? Say, oh, Lord, how can I repay you? What do you mean? What profit is there for him? And yet the Bible says, for example, in Isaiah 62, verse 11,

behold, your Savior comes, and his reward is with him. His reward. What is his reward? This ought to be pretty big for somebody like, you know, they will be called the holy people. They will be called. Don't you see? Jesus Christ, his reward is simply your joy. He put his happiness into your happiness. That's the only happiness he had. What else could there be? What else could he have? Do you see that? If you see him loving you like that, that completely, then you're going to be able to turn around and do it for others. Common sense, you could never produce this kind of love ever in a million years, but you could pass it on if somebody already gave it to you.

And Jesus has done it. So you have to change your entire approach to God and see verses 4 to 7, ultimately, the ultimate source of that is Jesus Christ hanging on the cross. And when you see yourself, when you've been graced by that, that fills you up and you move out in the world in a whole different way. That's the reason why I would just as soon not talk over the next few weeks, actually, and years maybe, but the next few weeks about virtues. We're not going to look at humility as a Christian virtue. We're not going to look at generosity, which, by the way, as a Christian virtue,

I'm going to look at it as a practical grace. We're going to look at practical ways in which the grace of God works itself out into our lives so that we can no longer hide behind just being doing good and being active we really want to grow in grace do we not in the knowledge of jesus christ if you're a christian and you're here tonight don't mistake gifts for graces look at your life are you growing ask somebody that knows you are you happier than you were a year ago humbler more self-forgetful i mean if you've had a lousy year i'm you know maybe you can't be you can't be is happy, but are you stronger? Are you kinder? Is your prayer life better? Don't mistake gifts for graces. And if there's anybody here who's still trying to figure out what it means to be a Christian,

please don't mistake being good for meeting Christ, for being born again, for having His grace in your life. Let us pray. Father, we ask tonight that you would help us to understand how dangerous it is for us to treat talents as if their character, or even treat moral good behavior as if it's a changed life. And we pray that over the next few weeks you might help us to understand the perfect love of Jesus Christ, who put his happiness into our happiness, who had no other happiness but our joy and our glory and our progress. Thanks for joining us here on the Gospel and Life podcast. If you were encouraged by today's teaching, you can help others discover this podcast by rating and reviewing it.

And to find more great gospel-centered content by Tim Keller, visit gospelonlife.com. Today's sermon was recorded in 2002. The sermons and talks you hear on the Gospel and Life podcast were recorded between 1989 and 2017, will Dr. Keller was senior pastor at Redeemer Presbyterian Church.