Chandler M. Snyder, Vice President for Institutional Relations at Southwestern Seminary, preached from 1 Corinthians 13, verses 1-3, in SWBTS Chapel on February 11, 2025.
The following is an uncorrected transcript generated by a transcription service. Before quoting in print, please check the corresponding audio for accuracy.
Thank you all. Dr grace, thanks for that introduction. Yes, I am a Kentucky fan. Very proudly. It’s always an honor to preach in this place and in this hour. And I am thankful to Dr Dockery for having asked me. I do think that Dr Osborne got to my son because my son, bit of a confidence hitter this morning, leaned over to me and goes, how long is this gonna be? So, I just feel like that’s a question. Dr Osborne set him up for which was rude. All right. Picture this with me.
It’s a Saturday afternoon sometime in June, all right, and you’re all dressed up like a spiffy second Tuesday. I see some of you guys representing Well, right now. All right, you walk into a wedding venue. Spoiler alert, it’s a barn. This is Texas. All right. You walk in, you see a platform, and maybe there’s an archway or a nice pergola with some lights and flowers hanging, and you sit down on the Groom side, or the bride’s side, and then the groom and the groomsmen walk in from the side door. The gospel is probably preached in a church wedding setting. Then the music kicks off. Bridesmaids saunter down the aisle. Then the big music hits.
The pastor asks everyone to stand up, and the doors open, and the bride walks in, arm in arm with her father, and they walk down the aisle, and he hands her to the groom. The pastor says some words, vows are exchanged, a covenant is made, that awkward moment where the unity candle is lit happens. Then he pronounces them husband and wife, and they kiss. It’s a wonderful, beautiful thing, and then the party starts. Now, let’s go ahead and get something out of the way, because while I was sharing that picture, I saw a number of TVC students’ kind of lean in thinking that this morning I’m gonna give them the road map to a ring. By spring, you’re running out of time. All right, just get that out of the way.
It’s February, okay? Others of you, third year MDiv students are sitting there, four years into your marriage, leaning back, and you’re like, Man, I got this thing nailed. This is a sermon on love. I know what’s up. I got my marriage. I figured this thing out. Well, take that picture of a hot Saturday afternoon and forget it. This passage and the Christian virtue of love that we’re going to talk about this morning is so much more than an effort of marital love. It’s so much more than that. Recently, I had the pleasure of attending a marriage conference that was held by our church, First Baptist Mansfield, where Doctor Grace and I and some others are members.
Real quick aside, I love my church, and if you are looking I would love to talk to you after service, because I love my church community, so it’s really important for you to know that, alright, and the preacher for the conference, who is a Southwesterner, and part of our ecosystem of southwestern he took a familiar passage, the fruit of the Spirit, Galatians five, and he asked us to lay that passage on top of our marriages. Now, that passage is often used in the context of church, community or your spiritual the fruit of the Spirit. What I’m asking us to do this morning is the inverse of that. Take this passage first, Corinthians 13, which we often really, really narrowly think about and apply to our marriages.
And I’m asking you to take that and lay it on top of a series of other relationships, your non marital relationships, primarily with your fellow church members, secondarily with fellow students, your children, your in laws, okay, your colleagues, your neighbors, the way that you see it and your neighbors, the way that Jesus taught it. Of course, this passage needs to be applied to your marriage. Of course it does, but there’s so much more benefit in this virtue, if we understand it rightly, this type of love relationship extended beyond one marital relationship can have eternal impact in your life and the lives of the community that you walk in. So, let’s get into it.
First Corinthians 13 has been read for us to begin a sermon titled The better way, and to stay true to the text, it is really vital that we look back to gain some understanding. There’s always a danger when you’re asked to preach on a particular topic that you make it say kind of whatever you want. But it’s important to remember that this passage sits in a context. First, this passage sits in a letter that Paul wrote the church at Corinth, a hot mess of a place that needed correction. They needed explanation, and they needed vision. And Paul, in the opening chapter of chapter one of the letter, he reminds them that they are from chapter one, verse two, the Church of God, those sanctified. In Christ, Jesus and called as saints.
Then he kicks off the first portion of the letter by calling out all the things that needed to be called out in the church, they had issues, and Paul, in his love for them, takes the first third of the letter and calls out the things that were a dumpster fire. Spoiler alert, the church members were the dumpster fire. Alright, they were a mess. Okay, so pastors, ministers, counselors, get ready. That’s what you’re walking into. Many cases. Finally, Paul turns the page on calling out their hot mess and provides explanation to them. They had questions, and Paul, under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, provides them clarity and answers. We see that happen in chapter seven, verse one.
It’s here in his response to the questions that deals with the order of the church, and it’s kind of where we’re going to focus in on today. How are they the church at Corinth, those saints supposed to conduct themselves in the church, which is where we find this. This passage sits in the middle of an explanation of spiritual gifts and how they should experience unity in their diversity. In the middle of talking about the spiritual gifts in chapters 12, and in chapter 14, he seems to take an inner mission to talk about the better way, the way of love. Notice it’s not a better gift. The better gift comes in chapter 14, but he’s talking about the better way for them to live.
But he stops and he says he takes an intermission of sorts, but the intermission isn’t here so that Paul could take a breath or rest his hand because it was cramping up like your Hebrew test. All right, he’s gearing up or and it’s not a breath for him to gear up for a final argument. I’m going to argue this morning that the intermission of chapter 13 in this discourse, it is the point Paul puts a bit of a stop to his discussion on spiritual gifts, which they had serious questions about, and you would, too if you showed up to church and all of a sudden somebody started flexing some gifts that the spirit had given them, and you had no context and No teaching for.
So, Paul is trying to give them clarity in this, but he stops, and he tells them at the end of chapter 12, verse 31 but desire the greater gifts coming in chapter 14, and I will show you an even better way. Love is the better way. The discourse of love or charity is placed here strategically to highlight the importance of it and to jarringly stop the reader in the middle to make a point that they need to dial in on. And that’s where we’re going to dial in this morning. There’s three things that I want us to capture from the text. The first one from verses one through three, love is essential for any of it to matter. Love is essential for any of it to matter. Paul’s line of thinking started in the last chapter.
He’s laying out a number of spiritual gifts, and in fact, he even ranks some of them for us, like, oh, these are the cool ones, all right. But remember, 1231, his hope is to show them a better way. Our spiritual gifts are good and needed and promised to us. As Ephesians four says, to grow us into a holy temple in the Lord being built together for God’s dwelling in the Spirit. We can’t do this thing called church in our own power. Now, the church is central to all we do at Southwestern despite other school’s brand claims on it. Just get that out of the way really quick. That is central to everything that we do without the gifts given to us by a generous and loving God. Once you’re hidden in the Gospel, real quick. For those of you that might be sitting here this morning and you’re like, hey bro, I don’t have, don’t call me bro, like, we can do that. Feel like that’s a bad standard. Sorry. Provost. Grace, all right. All right, hey, Chandler, I don’t have any spiritual gifts.
I’m not exercising anything in the context. I want to challenge you to consider, are you in Christ, spiritual gifts are delivered and given in the power of the Spirit as a gift of the Savior. Once you are in Jesus Christ. Now I know the room that we’re sitting in, and it’s right now that shame is gonna creep in, and you’re like, I don’t have any, but I fake them pretty well, but I’m really convicted about it. Don’t run away from the light of this moment. If you’re not in Christ, not a person in this room is going to give you side eye or judge you for not being in Christ. We’re going to eagerly share the hope of the gospel with you that Jesus, Christ, in His love for you, stepped into humanity and takes the punishment for your sin. You are a sinner, and there’s.
Consequence for that, but Christ steps into that, and if you but rely on His life, death and resurrection and faith, you can have a relationship with God forever. Know that we’re here to have that discussion after I come talk to myself or most of the faculty, I’m just kidding, all the faculty, all right, then allow your response to the gospel to push you into a local community of faith and see what God produces in you and through you for His glory. There are too many of you in this room, and I know this as truth, that are substituting this place in your academic experience for your community of faith. Stop it. This ain’t it.
I want you to enjoy this place, and I hope that you come here, and you hear gospel sermons that conform you into the image of Christ. But I’m not on the hook for you, and you’re not on the hook for me. Join a church and use what God has given you to push the body forward. All right, your community of faith can’t happen without a God enabled spiritual work taking place to keep you knit together and pulling in the same direction. And that takes us to what’s evidenced here, that love is essential for any of it to matter. Paul’s halftime show on love in this intermission.
Remember, it’s the point of the whole discourse, I think, begins right where he left. The discussion of the church’s order on spiritual gifts from 11 and 12. He talks about tongues. We see that come up in 12 verse 10, prophecy and knowledge come up in 12 verses eight and nine. And then generosity, this idea of giving your whole body up, comes in 1117, through 22 you. You could be the biggest, baddest, most articulate theologian on Earth. A real quick spoiler alert, third year MDiv student. You’re not he preaches on Thursday. Okay? You might be the most gifted, talented singer that ushers people into the throne room of Jesus. You might be the most productive disciple maker in your church contest context. You might be the funnest youth pastor that’s ever been. You might be the greatest preacher that ever preached third year MDiv student. You’re not he preached last Thursday. All right, but friends without love, it doesn’t matter. A lick, it doesn’t matter.
Quick aside, the English language is really limited and does a bad job of talking about love. You can love your spouse, and for some reason, love the Dallas Cowboys. All right, if you weren’t born in the 90s, I don’t know why you would love the Cowboys, but you can love those two things, and the English word makes those things equal. I love pizza and I love my kids, all right, I love the Kentucky Wildcats, and they sit in their own category. All right. A love that’s talking about here is an agape love. It’s what Paul is telling us. It’s a type of self-sacrificing gospel love, a love that is recognizable in the words and in the ministry of Jesus and fulfilled on the cross we see in Romans five, eight, God proves his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.
One commentator says of love, love for the utterly unworthy, a love that proceeds from a God who is love. It is lavished on you and others without the thought of whether you are worthy or not. It proceeds from the nature of the lover, not from the attractiveness of the beloved. You can absolutely nail all the externals, and you can sharpen up and tighten up your rhetorical skills, and you can learn all the cool tricks to share the gospel and all the disciple making tools that can be and still completely miss it. You can do all things, have all skills, and still be useless. Love is essential for any of it to matter. This is why we remember this word; this agape love is gospel reality.
The Gospel that you have experienced is love. If you’ve experienced it in faith and have turned around in your day-to-day operations, in class, in work, in family, in your business, in your church, and you serve without love, you’re missing the point. When we miss the point, we forget the person in the work of Jesus and what he has achieved for His glory in saving us operate with love. It’s essential for anything we do to matter the upside, the upside-down world of Christ that Christ preaches in Matthew five and lives out throughout his entire ministry and life, do.
Demands that we care about and examine the motive, not only the outcome. The enemy will want you to get that backward. The enemy is going to want you to think about how productive you are and how good at this thing you are, or how fruitful you are in your ministry, and let your soul and encourage your soul to wither the central motivation matters, that of love. How many of you all listen to the rise and fall of Mars Hill that podcast? Real quick? Yeah, it was a pretty powerful podcast. We can talk about your take on it later. But the central theme of that was, don’t let your platform or your output outstrip your Christ like character and what he’s producing in you, the origin matters more than the outcome in your life.
The Gospel Kingdom is not a capitalist zero sum economic system. Origin matters. Our origin is Christ and His love enacting, enabling and demanding our action. Get the order of business right, do work and do it from the right place, because the Lord knows the heart all right. Deep breath. Love is essential for any of it to matter, and your character in Christ matters more than your output. Takes us to the next movement of Paul’s words on love, verses four through eight. A common criticism of the scripture from those that are disenfranchised or those that have deconstructed their faith is that the Bible is really nothing more than a checklist of things that you have to do to earn God’s favor.
Now you and I, we all know that’s a garbage take. It’s a garbage take. Bible is the story of God revealing himself and reconciling himself to humanity, and if we yet believe, we can have union with God eternally. A checklist No, no, but we hit passages like this, and it feels a little checklisty. It feels a little bit like that, right? Like we get here and we say, okay, love is patient and kind and rejoices in truth, and it bears all things, and it believes all things, and it hopes all things and endures all things, and Love never ends. It feels like a list, right? Oh, and by the way, love doesn’t envy and it isn’t boastful, and it isn’t arrogant, and it isn’t rude, and it isn’t self-seeking, and it isn’t irritable, it doesn’t keep a record of wrongs, and it finds no joy in unrighteousness, if we’re being honest about it, it feels like a list, all right, and in our weaker and In our lazier moments, we engage it like a list, telling me, Christian that you haven’t, at a time held this up and said, I’m doing this really well, and I’m doing this really, really poorly, and you’ve held it up and examined yourself in that way you’ve done this.
Yeah, I was really patient this week with that church member. That drives me nuts. Yeah, I’m crushing it. I’m nailing it. I’m definitely so kind all the time. I definitely am never jealous or envious of anyone else, definitely not those in ministry that are being more productive and getting a bigger platform and having more opportunities. In fact, I’m sure I’d be even more productive if I would just get an opportunity to preach as much as the pastor does like no doubt, I’d be better, right? We really quickly use this, a passage like this, as a list to proof all of our best moments. And we really quickly close the book, close the Bible, and forget the list. When we hold up our bad moments, or we do the inverse of that, and the enemy dials in on our moments of failure, engaging this list and those things of failure begin to build mass and gravity in our minds and in our hearts.
It looks like this, an innocuous fight with your wife, a disappointment that hits you from your children or a church member or a colleague, and what you immediately do is you throw out at them what they did wrong three weeks ago, plus this one moment, keeping a record of their wrongs, and then them being far more sanctified than you undoubtedly, very kindly says my brother in Christ, this is what you should engage me like in love. You shouldn’t keep a record of my wrongs, and then shame creeps in, and you’re like, Yeah, I’m the worst. I’m not even worthy of this thing called love, so how I’m going to respond is by not talking to you for 24 hours, giving you the cold shoulder, not that I’ve ever done this, and then trying to move forward, forgetting that I did anything wrong.
Love is all of the good and none of the bad, but we can’t engage this list exclusively as an assessment of our external behaviors. We need to engage this passage on love, remembering that it was love, the love of Christ, that saves us, and that we are called to extend that same type of love, the love given to us in the Gospel, abide. God’s in us. John 15. So, our embodiment and the fulfillment of loves are not the things that we do to show it, and definitely not the things we do to earn it, but the character of whose we are, the characteristics are all indicators of who Christ is and how he has gripped your soul, not how well you perform. You didn’t receive the gift of the love of Christ because you did these things so well. Nor do you increase or decrease Christ’s love and satisfaction of you based on how well you do and perform these characteristics, God loves and accepts you, brother and sister in Christ based on the person and work of Jesus applied to you, nothing more and nothing less, this should produce in the Christian a soul rest that the world doesn’t understand your acceptance based on the work of Christ applied to your life must inherently produce things within you.
No, we don’t earn the favor of God as we fulfill the composite makings of this list, but we do look like Christ when we’re patient and kind and not envious or boastful, not arrogant or rude, not self-seeking or irritable, keeping no records of wrongs. Not joyful and unrighteousness, but rejoicing in truth, bearing all things, believing all things, hoping all things, and enduring all things. A fun homework exercise for you this week. All right, this one’s not on the syllabus, so do it if you want, take this list air quotes alright, and stack it up. And then go to the Gospels and find where Christ did each of these things in perfection. Go look at that list and stack it up and say, wow, he got all of that right.
And then be thankful. Be thankful. What you should then do is take that list and hold up your shortcomings over the last week, when was I patient? I wasn’t patient here; I wasn’t in I was envious. Here, stack it up and see where you totally blow it. And then do two things, look your shortcomings in the eye and rejoice, because God experiences you Christian with the full righteousness of Christ’s list applied to your account, not your performance of this list. And then look where you’ve actually crushed it and praise the Lord for what he’s producing in you.
Back to it. I said, we display the fit, the effect and the efficacy of Christ’s love as we pursue living these characteristics well in our spaces. Think there’s three arenas that I want you to engage this in. The first arena of application for us, we live these characteristics out in the context of your local covenant community of faith. In these words, remember from chapter one written to the church of God at Corinth, these words are for you and yours the Church of God at gamble Street, Travis Avenue, First Baptist. Keller, redemption city, Redeemer, redemption hills, First Baptist. Manfield paradox, Hewland Street, South Hills, Trinity, River. Baptist Church, First Baptist. Burleson Stadium Drive, Baptist Church. Wedgwood, Baptist Church.
These words are for you. So, church member, are you seeking to show the effect of Christ’s love in your community of faith, and are you living these characteristics out with the broadest impact that you have your fellow brothers and sisters in that church community? It isn’t that you don’t want to live these characteristics. It’s just that we’ve applied this passage so narrowly to our marriage, we don’t get the full impact of what he’s doing in us. Grow. Don’t sell the effect of Christ’s sacrifice applied to you and through you. Short, bless the socks off of your community and live these things well in your church. Second arena of application for us with this passage is apply this in your family.
Yes, apply it in your family. Of course. What often happens for those of us in ministry is we know we have to keep up this external reality of what people experience us as, right? So what often happens is, in our church context, we give the absolute best parts of what Christ has done in us to those people that we see four hours a week, and then we go home, and we really want to apply this list in the context of our marriage, in the context of our community, but man, we’re tired and we’re drained from performing really well out there, and who ends up getting the short end of the stick are those that are living with me.
Get the order right? Yes. Look. Live these gifts out with your church, but remember friends who produces these things in you, the eternal Christ whose well doesn’t run out for you. So, love well and love rightly and give the best parts of what this is to your family and your spouse and your children, just as you seek to provide it and live it in your community of faith. Third arena of application for us in this context is Love your enemies. Love those that are outside of the arena of faith. Be a person that lives this reality so well, and you live in an upside-down manner that it confuses the mess out of the world. It blows people’s minds and then chase that confusion that you have produced and how you live in their lives with words, with gospel confrontation, yeah, be a good person, and then put words to it so that they can become a good person in Christ, Jesus.
If we don’t link these two things, then we’re not doing what Christ has asked us to do in the community of faith that He’s given us. So, live well and speak the gospel well. All right, to this point, we’ve determined that love is essential for any of it to matter, and we’ve determined that love is all of the good and none of the bad. Last couple verses, eight through 13. Love is the greatest and remaining from the list we see above, Paul moves the Corinthians to realizing some incredible realities about their current hope. Keep in mind they asked about the church and spiritual gifts, and he’s answering them.
He shows them the reality of the gifts that they’re wanting, and then he totally takes them away. All of these things are going to go away what he says, but not totally. All of these things are going to be fulfilled. He gives them. He shows them the temporary shadow of the gifts that they have and the greatness of the substance to come. The very thing that he has shown them as good and better is the way that you and I get to operate right now in love, and it’s the culmination of all of this at the end too. As we close, I want us to focus on the last verse. Now these three remain faith, hope and love, but the greatest of these is love, brothers and sisters, studying or teaching in the classroom, serving on staff or serving tables at a restaurant to afford systematic theology Books Wherever you are, we have the joy of both the shadow of faith, hope and love and the hope of the substance in eternity.
Miraculously experiences the experiencing these things all today, and amazingly, having so much more to look forward to faith, this thing that creates the ability to know God by grace, you have been saved through faith. Ephesians, two. Faith is the beginning of the journey of life and true love. Faith is the way to the narrow road. Faith is what gets you through the days when those around you are not engaging others in love as it is described, hope. Hope is what we have when we experience God through faith. Hope that you aren’t on the hook for your screw ups. Hope that Christ holds you eternally in his hand. Hope that he knows you and you know His voice.
Hope that he walks beside you in the valley, and hope that he has taken the punishment for your sins, and in doing so, unites you with God eternally. Hope that drives our obedience and hope that gives you sleep on anxious nights, restless nights, when your business, your schoolwork, your church, your family, aren’t going quite the way of ease, and then love, love is the better way. It’s better than the gifts that are splashy and sexy mentioned in the chapter before and the chapter after, better than the total composite of the individual characteristics discussed in the four previous verses, better than faith and hope. Love is the fulfillment of faith and hope because we know love is Christ and that it never fails and that it never stops.
Christ’s love for you and for me is an eternal love that guarantees rest and result. Incredible thing about the kingdom, this better way of love, what we can pursue, and experiences now is also it’s the greatest thing we get to experience eternally, the already and the not yet, the best parts of one another right now only gets better when we look him in the eye. So, what does this spur you and I to do? What does this carry us to Christian, I hope it. Makes us want to run through a wall in loving one another well and sharing the gospel together well with others, it motivates us now to engage love, not as our culture defines it as this consumeristic and parasitic love that just takes and takes and takes, often, from our devices and of others. It motivates us to live now what we realize eternally. Put the work in to make much of Jesus and reflect what he has done eternally in you, in your space today and tomorrow, work to live and love and forgive quickly so that Jesus’s work is put on display as rightly as we can manage in the power of the Spirit, put feet to the words we should proclaim the hope of the Gospel spoken to the lost because we love them too much to not tell them and live it out with those who are closest to us, words and deeds.
Let’s love for the glory of Christ, Father, we come to you this morning, thankful that you give us passages like this to think through and be challenged by. But God, not only give us passages like this, but you gave us a life like that, so that we could see what perfect fulfillment looks like. And fathers, we’re experiencing you now in this world that we operate in equip us to love and love well and give us this exciting hope that we’re going to look it in the eye eternally later, be glorified in what you do in us, in Christ’s name, Amen.
