The Way of Love (1 Corinthians 13)

[Music] Will the Lord be with you?

If you have a Bible, and I hope you or someone around you does, would you turn with me? We are going to be continuing our series in the book of 1 Corinthians. So, we're going to be in 1 Corinthians chapter 13 this morning. 1 Corinthians chapter 13.

And what we've been seeing through this series is that Paul is writing to a church in the city of Corenth. And this church in Corinth has a variety of issues. They are finding themselves divided on many fronts. And we see specifically in the church corporate body that even the things that God had intended for the church to be united around, even those things these Corinthian Christians were were finding ways to divide over.

And so we see early on that he explains how within their um relationships to one another, men and women were not honoring one another in rejoicing in the gift that they had been given by giving their um differences and how they are to complement one another within the corporate body. We see that with communion, the Lord's supper, we see that this was meant to be a time where we unite as the body of Christ, but instead many were treating it as it was a competition or if it was a social meeting where they were neglecting the poor and they were allowing others to go hungry or or thirsty.

And now what we've been spending some time for the last couple of weeks on is that we've been looking at spiritual gifts. how God by his Holy Spirit has given every Christian one or multiple spiritual gifts. And what we found is that these spiritual gifts were given by the sovereign will of the Holy Spirit. The spirit specifically chose you and gave a very unique gift for your good and for the good of the entire church. And then last time, if you remember, he specifically pointed out and these gifts that he's giving you, he doesn't give to everybody else. Meaning that not every Christian or there's not one Christian that has every single gift, which shows that we are interdependent, that we actually need one another.

But the church here in Corenth, they were missing this. What they were doing is they were competing and comparing their gifts. And they were thinking because some could do some miraculous things, maybe speaking in tongues, which we're going to spend some more time in the next couple of weeks really camping out on on tongues and prophecy. So, I'm not going to let this message really focus in on that topic so much. But it seems as if many were starting to think that those who could speak different languages that they didn't normally know themselves that that was more spectacular than the gift of like service or the gift of helping or administration. And so what they're thinking is, well, why does God not love me as much as that person? Or or maybe there's something I can do to earn this spiritual gift. And then the guys that are speaking in tongues, they're thinking that they maybe are better than some of these other individuals. And so what we find is that these gifts were meant to unify the church, but instead they were allowing these gifts to divide them.

And as we've seen through this entire series, the reason that this church is so divided is because they rather than letting the gospel of Christ be their identity and be what they center their entire lives around, they've been letting the culture tell them how to live. They've been letting the world infiltrate the church rather than the church going out and influencing the world. And I know as many of us, I think that this is going to be relevant not only for what what Paul's been sharing with us um in this letter, but I think with the way the world is and I know that many of us have felt the heaviness of this past week and we know that we live in a broken world. This world is filled with division, with violence, evil. And that's what this church is feeling because they were letting that world infiltrate the church. And so many of us once again feeling the heaviness maybe of this past week with all of the different things going on in this world. I think that many of us have have felt this. And if we aren't careful, we can allow the world to infiltrate our hearts. We can let the world change the way that we live.

But what Paul shows us here is at the very end of chapter 12, if you notice, he's been talking about these spiritual gifts, but at the very end, he says, "And yet, I show you a more excellent way." Meaning, they have been divided. They've been letting the world show them how to live. They've been feeling the brokenness, the division, the the violence, the evil, all of these things that are going on. And Paul says, 'But there is a more excellent way. And in chapter 13, we see the more excellent way. That is the way of love.

1 Corinthians 13 is a chapter many of us probably know very well, even if you've not been in church, because you've probably heard it at weddings read. It's often called the love chapter. And I know there there could be a temptation this morning to say, "I've heard this read so many times, or I've heard it being preached on before, or or is this really going to be just a message about love one another?" Again, if that is you, I think you were missing exactly what Paul is teaching here. Because the reason we see all of these issues in the world is because they don't have this message in their hearts. because they aren't truly applying what Paul calls the way of love.

And in fact, there's a story that Jerome, an early Christian, he's writing a commentary on the book of Galatians. And he shares a story of the Apostle John. Now, this isn't in the Bible, but this is in in church history. Jerome is writing and retelling a very popular story. And the Apostle John, who wrote the Gospel of John, wrote Revelation, wrote the epistles. It says that in his elder age when the Apostle John could barely speak, he could barely walk. They would carry him into some of the corporate worship gatherings together, he would share a very brief sermon. And the sermon that he would share is little children love one another. And then they would go and take him off the podium. And then they would the next week that would be the message. Little children love one another. And after doing it multiple times, one of the Christians finally came up to him and says,"Wh do you always say and teach the same thing?" And what John responds in Jerome's writing is he says, "This is the commandment of our Lord. And if you do this, it is sufficient because by this we do all things."

I think what John was getting at here is that if we really want to make a positive impact in this world, if we want to see the world the way that Christ has intended it, the solution is found in the way of love. We are called to be the bearers of light and love in this world. In fact, there can be this temptation once again to fight the world with the way that the world treats us. But in fact, we know that Paul says that we are not to be overcome by evil. We are to overcome evil with good.

And so I think that's what we see in chapter 13 this morning in verses 1 to3. I want to read this again for us. Just listen to the way that Paul describes what we are without this without love. Because I think what he shows us is that without love, we are nothing.

"Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging symbol. And though I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all of my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing."

Do you see how specific and direct Paul is being here on how important this is? The issues that are going on in this church, the issues that are going on in our world, it's we see so many without love. The world, what they what do they value? Well, I think they value what he is describing here. He's kind of giving this this hyperbolic list of all these things you could say, all these things you could do. And what the world values is is that they value speech. How eloquent are you? How articulate are you? Knowledge. How smart are you? You know, are you showing us that you're brilliant? And indeed, what what have you accomplished? How successful are you? See, these things aren't bad in themselves. It's not wrong to to to speak well, to to be intelligent, to do many amazing things. But what Paul gets at here is that without the right motivation, it is meaningless. If you do all of these things, say all these things, if you know all of these things, but if your heart isn't right, it means nothing to God. God's not pleased with you if you don't have the right heart posture. It has no lasting significance if you do not have love.

And so he's showing us love is greater. And I wonder, do you truly believe this in your mind whenever we come to a text like this? Do you believe love is greater than beautiful speech, than brilliant scholarship, than bold spirituality and benevolent sacrifices? because he gives this list and it's really amazing if you look at it. He says at one point if you speak with the tongues of men and of angels, this is probably addressing that tongues issue where some of these people were gifted and they were able to speak foreign language. Could you imagine if I was up here and I don't know Mandarin and I just start speaking Mandarin perfectly to you. That's what some of these people were able to do in this church. That would be pretty spectacular. But he says even if you're speaking these different languages and he even says and maybe even the the tongues of angels. Now, there's a debate on whether or not that that was actually something he thought that some Christians would be able to do or if he's once again just using hyperbolic language, but we'll leave that on the side. But he's saying that you could speak all of this beautiful language, but he says, "But if you don't have love, you're a clanging symbol. That means you're just loud. You just make noise. You're not helping anybody. God would rather have you be quiet." That's basically what he's saying. He's saying, "Shut up lovingly." Right? That's what he's saying to these Christians. Stop speaking in tongues if you don't love people.

Once again, if you come up behind this pulpit, if you love preaching more than the people that you're preaching to, that is an issue. There's so many people that they want to get behind the pulpit. They want to teach, but do you love people? When we go on mission, there's so many missionaries that they want to go, they want to do the work and get and get the photo op, and they don't want to stay and have a meal with the people. They don't they don't want to go back the next year, the next month. They don't want to keep having these relationships. They want to go they want to do the thing, feel good about themselves, get a photo, and say, "Look, I was with this child in this event." But no real relationship. The more important thing is the relationship. Not that you built a wall, that you painted a fence, that you did whatever you did, that you fed um the poor for one day. It's that you love them. That's what he's saying here. that you have to have love for people, not just saying these things.

The other examples that he gives is that if you have um the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, now this is why I think he's speaking hyperbolically. No one has all knowledge. No one has every single mystery figured out, right? Unless you are God, unless you're omnisient. But what he's saying there, even if you have if you're the smartest person in the room, doesn't matter if you don't love, God's not impressed. You have to have love. He says if you have the faith, all faith that could move mountains, we would be pretty impressed. The world would be impressed if I went outside and I just start moving Giant City around. That'd be pretty impressive. God's not impressed. You could do amazing things. No one has move Giant City around. We would be impressed. The world would be impressed. God would not be impressed. He wants to see your love. That's what God wants. So he gives the these examples. He he he explains moving mountains. He even says that if you were to give all of your goods to feed the poor, literally give everything the shirt off your back. You give everything, God's not impressed, or even if you were burned, that you died, but you don't have love.

Hopefully, we're seeing how serious Paul is getting here with saying that if you have the gifts of the spirit, but if you don't have the fruit of the spirit, the first one being love, it doesn't matter. The fruits of the spirit are more important than the gifts of the spirit. And so, we need to as a church, and I'm talking about the church universal here, we have to get this right. The most important thing is that we are expressing living out the the fruits of the spirit and then we then mature in our gifts of the spirit because when we think about the words of Christ and you might be thinking well that's Paul or you might be thinking that is it really that big of a deal you know and maybe Zach's trying to overemphasize this specific message about the way of love.

Well, when we look at the words of Jesus Christ, our Lord when he is asked, "What is the most important thing? What is the greatest commandment?" What does Jesus say in Matthew 22:es 37-4? Jesus said to him, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great commandment. And the second is like it. You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments hang all the law and prophets." Think about that. Was it important for Jesus that we really would love God with all our heart, soul, mind, and strength and that we would love our neighbor as ourselves? He says that is the most important thing. The most important thing you can do in this life is love God, love people. That is our mission. That is something that is said often in our call to worship that we come to love God, love one another, and make disciples. And some of us really need to ask this question. Not do we just come to a church service, but do I love Jesus? Am I in a relationship with Jesus Christ? Do I love him more than anything else? That's the greatest commandment to love Jesus and to let that love then flow out of you to love other people. That is the greatest commandment.

And Jesus on the night in which he is about to be betrayed and then later arrested and killed. He says this in John 13:35, "By this all will know that you are my disciples if you have love for one another. How do we know if you are truly a disciple of Jesus Christ? It's not. Do you speak in tongues? It's not if you were baptized. It's not if you go to church on Sunday. It's not if you know the Bible better than most people. If you're really theologically sound, it's do you love? Do you love God? Do you love one another?

And the thing is, I don't think that this is just God just saying, "I want you to love me. I want you to love people. Um, you know, I'm just trying to give you an arbitrary command here. I think it's because God knows what is best for us. It gives him glory, but it's also for our good. See, love is like oxygen. Without it, there's not life. Can you imagine what it would be to live and to walk through this world without any love? Not only do you not love anything or anyone, but you receive no love. That's not a world worth living in. See, love is essential. Love is is necessary for us to live. And so, I think that's why he wants us to do this. He created us to be relational beings. We are to love one another. In fact, I've seen some experiments where some individuals have gone and they've been in isolation for a week or a month where they did not have any human interaction before and you see what they go through mentally, emotionally, spiritually, whenever they aren't able to just connect with someone. There's a reason solitary confinement is such a serious punishment because we were created to coexist and and to be in relationship. Even our God is three persons in one being. He is a relational being himself. And so we see that love is essential.

And so in the end why he says that without love we are nothing because at the end of the day when we are all breathing our last breath when we are on our deathbed do you know what matters the most is your love for Jesus and your love for others. You're not going to be on your deathbed and say, "I really wish I made more money. I really wish I got a couple more hours in at work." The most important thing is, did you love well? And are there people who love you that are right there with you that care about you? And we know that when you breathe your last breath, the only thing that matters is what did you do with Jesus? Because if you don't love Jesus, if you don't know Jesus, the end result is that you experience an eternity without love. You have to exist forever without love. But if you love Jesus, we see that you get eternal gain, eternal relationship with God. And so I hope we see that the stress that Paul is making here that without love, we are nothing. We need to make sure that we are checking our hearts, checking our motivations, and that we are truly seeking to love God and love one another.

But as I say that, as we move to verses 4 to 7, I know that there could be a temptation here to hear this message about love and think, are are you just saying just basically do nothing? Because sometimes you that saying love, you know, love God or love others, like what does that mean? So as we look to this, I think what you'll see is that Paul shows us that love is not arbitrary. Love is not just say let's all sit around the campfire, sing kumbaya and not really do anything in this world. Rather, I think that Paul shows us in verses 4 to 7 that love has a definition. See, sometimes you'll hear in our world, our culture, love is love or love is affirming everything I do. But that's not biblical love. Love has a definition. In fact, what you'll see is not only is love our motivation, love is also an action. Love does in this text. In 1 John 3:18, it says, "Let us not love in word or in tongue, but in deed and in truth." See the difference? You can love with word by just saying the things that that you need to say, or you can actually do something in love and you can do it in truth. And that's what he shows us here because in this passage he defines for us what love does. And this is the part that many are probably familiar with as they've heard at weddings before.

But in verses 4 to 7 it say it says that love suffers long and is kind. Now some of these are like some the way it's phrased depending on your translation like what exactly does that mean? Well, to say that lover love suffers long and is kind, it means that love is patient. Love patiently will endure when they are wronged. Are you patient when people wrong you? Do you take a lot of wrongs being done to you? And do you patiently endure it? Are you longsuffering whenever people treat you or mistreat you? It also says that it is kind. That means that not only are you someone who can be patient, long-suffering when someone does wrong to you, but when you choose to respond, how do you respond? With gentleness, you respond with gentleness. So this is active. Someone, anyone knows that it takes strength to be patient. It's not the easy thing to do to it's the easy thing to be impulsive. Strength comes with being patient, to suffer long. That is the hard thing. and then to respond with gentleness when the world says lash out at them. That is strength. Love suffers long and is kind.

It also says love does not envy. Hopefully, we're taking an examination of our own hearts and how we love as we hear these words. How much does this sound like you right now? Love does not envy. What that means is love is content. Are you content in Christ? Are you content? Whatever the storm, whatever the season of life, it also means that love celebrates the blessings of others. See, envious is whenever you see somebody else, you see God blessing them or something good happening in their life and they're saying they don't deserve it. That should be me. That's not love. That's envy. That's greed. That's selfishness. Love does not envy. Love does not parade itself and is not puffed up. This is showing us that love cannot be prideful. Love walks in humility. Are you trying to get attention? Are you trying to get a following? Are you trying to get all of the the attention on you and the praise on you? Or are you content by letting others be praised and celebrated ultimately glorifying God? Let him be praised above you. Because love does not parade itself and is not puffed up.

It says that love does not behave rudely. Love does not seek its own, is not provoked, and thinks no evil. This is showing us that love is respectful. We know what it's like to be rude at times, but instead to choose respect, to not seek its own is to be selfless. Stop always looking to yourself what your your wants, your your desires are, but you're actually looking to the betterment of other individuals. And it says is not provoked and thinks no evil. What this is talking about is this is not someone who just continues to be a faultfinder, keeping a record of wrongs. This is someone that is willing and ready, quick to forgive. Are you someone that forgives quickly? Are you someone that likes to hold on to resentment and bitterness? Love is forgiving.

And then we see that it says that love does not rejoice in iniquity but rejoices in the truth. Now this one I really love myself. This is showing us that love is not just simply affirmation because our world says you don't love me if you don't affirm everything that I do. But what this says is that love doesn't celebrate sin. It doesn't rejoice in iniquity. That's what it's saying. Love can't do that because love wants what is best for you. and sin, error, these things are not good. So love, what it does is it stands up for truth. So what this shows us, by the way, this is counter to us sometimes in our mindset. If you want to love somebody, sometimes that means you have to upset them. To love somebody, sometimes you have to do things that they would say that's not very nice because love is not nice. It says love is kind. There is a difference. Love rejoices in the truth. In Romans 12:9, it says, "Let love be without hypocrisy. Abhore what is evil and cling to what is good." So if you really want to love somebody, do you know what that means? You have to hate evil. You have to abhore evil. You have to stand up for good, righteousness, for love. You have to sometimes tell someone to repent. That's not a curse word in the church or it shouldn't be. That's something that we actually we we we want people to change their mind if we think that they are going down a dangerous path. That's all repent means. It means change your mind. Turn around. Consider Jesus. Love rejoices in the truth. We must stand up for truth if we want to love well.

And then we see it says it bears all things, it believes all things, hopes all things, and endures all things. This is showing us that love perseveres through tribulation. Love is optimistic. It sees the best in people. It hopes the best in people. It continues to carry the weight whenever life gets hard. Love bears, believes, hopes, endures all things. And hopefully as you are hearing this list now, and maybe you're seeing how you fail in some of these areas, you're you're seeing that hopefully love is countercultural. This isn't the way that the world loves. This isn't the way that the world treats people. So often we are the ones that are that are impatient, that we are unkind, that we do envy, we we we are prideful, we puff ourselves up, we parade ourselves, we behave rudely, we seek our own, we are provoked, and sometimes we are a faultfinder. We we make this list of all the things that people have done wrong to us. And even if we forgive them, sometimes we bring it back up later whenever they wrong us again. Like, well, you did this last time. We do these things. We sometimes we do rejoice in sin. Sometimes we we celebrate what the culture celebrates rather than what Christ says in his word. We we sometimes aren't willing to bear, believe, hope and endure all things. See, love is countercultural. See, this is not a sing kumbaya, don't do anything in this world. If you want to impact the world, if you want to make a difference, if you want to overcome evil with good, this is what it looks like. Love is not arbitrary. Love is active. love does.

And in verses 8 to1 13, it shows us that not only without love are we nothing, love is not arbitrary, but we also see that love never fails. And this is the encouragement for us. This is why we know this is the solution to the world's problems. This is the answer for the church. It's been the answer for 2,000 years. It's been the answer from the beginning of time. Love never fails. That means that love is permanent. Love is the thing that will last forever. Why does love never fail? Because God never fails. In 1 John 4:8, I love this verse. So many of us know this by memory. It says, "He who does not love does not know God, for God is love." See, God could be a lot of things. We like God is powerful, right? We can say so many different things about who what God is. But John wanted to be so clear that in his very nature, God is love. So that list that we just read, all these characteristics of what love is like, that's what our God is like. Sometimes we have a very, you know, distorted view of God. We think that he is a faultfinder. That we think he's just looking to to judge us or just, you know, or that he's always mad at us. That's not our God. Our God is a God who sends Jesus. Our God is a God who loves all people, including his enemies. That he is patient. He is long-suffering with this world. And he actually comes and offers us this love.

Because in 1 John 4:1 19, it says, "We love because he first loved us." See, you don't love God on your own. You love God because he loves you first. He has been gracious to you. He has shown you his loving kindness. And some of you like, "Well, wait. I feel like I've loved before and I wasn't a Christian." And that's true. You can love in one sense, but the thing is the love of God is radically different as we've already seen in this list. See, the love of the world is limited. And often times it falls into selfishness. But the love of God is unconditional. It's unfailing. It's unending. The love of God is for all people. You can't lose it. And the love of God is even for enemies. Some of you might not know Christ. Maybe you've not maybe you've lived a life completely radically separate from Christ and he still loves you. Jesus came even for enemies. That is the type of love that we're talking about. Even those who betray us, even those who persecute us, who curse us, those are the ones that God still loves. And for us to be able to love one another like God loves, we need the Holy Spirit in our lives. We need a God who loves us first so that we can love others.

And in fact, as I've already kind of been alluding to this, the love of God is the driving force of the gospel. We do not have good news of salvation if it was not for the love of God. Do you understand that? If you're thinking love is a silly message, or if you're thinking love is not that powerful, none of us would have hope in this life if it was not for the love of God.

John 3:16 is the most popular verse in the Bible for a reason. "For God so loved the world. That's you. That's me. That's every single person, no matter how sinful they are in this world. For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son that whoever believes in him should not perish but have everlasting life." The reason Jesus came on the earth is because God loves you. He loves you. And all you have to do is believe in him. Trust in him. Say yes. I want that type of love. I want the love of God. And I want to show other people the love of God. And I want to see this world that God loves radically transformed. I want to see evil be overcome by good. That's what we're seeing in the gospel message. The good news is that love killed death. Do you understand that? Jesus came, lives a perfect life, died on the cross for your sins, for my sins, rose from the dead. literally rose from the dead and he conquered sin and death. He has overcome the evil of this world. And so now because of what he has done, if we embrace his love, we now have conquered death too. The final enemy, death, is conquered. You have victory over sin, evil, death, over this world because of the love of God.

In Romans 5:8, it says, "But God demonstrates his own love toward us, and that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us, much more than having now been justified by his blood, we shall be saved from the wrath through him. For if when we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his son, much more having been reconciled, we shall be saved by his life." You've been reconciled. You've been justified by Christ through his death. How much more through his life, through his resurrection, the love of God has conquered everything that we worry about in this life. The love of God is greater than anything we could ever encounter in this world. And so if love is truly this amazing, why not partake of it? Why not live it out? Why not change the world? Change our churches? Change our communities? Change our home life? Let us love the world as God loves us.

Because as it says in this passage, at the end of the day, the spiritual gifts, they do fail. They will stop. They will cease. Faith and hope, amazing things, they also will eventually have no use in heaven. You don't have to have faith or hope in heaven because you're there. But you know, the one thing that will continue for all time, it's love. Love will always be a reality for those who are in Christ. And it even says that one day though at this point we are on this side of eternity. We are we are thinking about God. We are we are looking to God as if we are looking in in a a veiled mirror. We have a distorted image. We don't have the perfect sight yet. But one day Christ will return or we will breathe our last breath here. And you know what you will see? Jesus face to face and you will know what true love is. You will know this love that you've experienced on this earth. Maybe it's through a a family member, a maybe a parent, a friend, maybe your children, you've got to experience a taste of love. That is just just a taste of the love that you will experience when you see Jesus Christ in his glory, in his power, in his kingdom, and you get to be with him forever. That's what we get to do because of the love of God. You get to experience love in the fullness forever. That's what we get.

And so love is the most important thing. The answer to what was going on in in this world. Maybe you're dealing with some stuff. Maybe you're dealing with some problems, some heaviness in this life. The answer is love. Love God. Love others. Even when you don't feel like loving, even if you feel unlovable, preach the gospel to yourself that God loves sinners. God loves the broken. God loves the outcasts. God loves the enemies. He loves all people. And if they would just come to him, they will experience his love forever.

So as we look to Paul's letter in 1 Corinthians, we see chapter 13. We see this humble reminder. Without love, we are nothing. But love is not arbitrary. It is an action. And love never fails. So my encouragement for us is this. Love Jesus. Love like Jesus. This is the