Welcome to Gospel in Life.

1 Corinthians 13 is one of the most well-known chapters in the entire Bible because it is read at so many weddings.

The passage is familiar to many people for how it describes love as patient and kind, and that it keeps no record of wrongs.

But, these verses are not meant to be used as a checklist for good behavior.

Today, Tim Keller looks at the deeper meaning of this passage

and shows how it points us not to moral perfection, but to Christ and the transforming power of his love.

Thank you. his love. Let me read to you the passage on which our teaching space this morning. It's printed your bulletin. It's 1 Corinthians 13, 1 to 13. 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 love 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 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, and 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, and when I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. Now we see but a poor

reflection is 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.

Fortunately, this great passage we're looking at for a number of weeks,

and today I really think I only have time to make one more point in our series of looking at this, but it's an extremely important point.

We said that this is a very famous passage, one of the most famous passages in all of literature, and it's almost always

read as a standalone thing, and as a result, we think of it as inspirational. If you find

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