THE GREATEST OF THESE

Introduction

-{1 Corinthians 13}

-Many people die with regrets. No one sets out on that journey to complete their life that way. No one says, “I’m going to live my life in such a way that I do a whole lot of mindless drivel, and then when my life comes to an end I want to feel the burden of having accomplished nothing.” Most everyone sets out to do something with themselves, but the problem is that the stuff that they set out to do turns out to not be as valuable as they thought because they concentrated so much on the temporary at the expense of what will outlast them.

~How many men and women built for themselves an empire at the expense of their children, and then they die having their family hate and despise them. How many people went in pursuit of gaining the whole world, only to find out that it came at the cost of their own soul.

-We who are Christian think that this would be the problem of the world…of the unbeliever. But nowhere does it say that Christians will die without regrets. I mean, we won’t regret believing in Jesus—He is our light and life. But what we might regret is what we did (or did not do) with what Jesus gave us—how we utilized the time and energy that we had. And I’m not talking about whether or not we served the Lord—but I’m talking about our means and methods and motivations behind what we did. Sure, we may go through the religious motions: we went to church once a week, usually; we may have served here and there; but to be honest our heart wasn’t all that into it. And therein lies the problem. Because we need to remember that how and why we serve the Lord is just as important as what we do to serve the Lord. Charles Spurgeon put it this way:

It is not what your hands are doing, nor even what your lips are saying; the main thing is what your heart is meaning and intending. Love’s Law And Life, Volume 32, Sermon #1932 - John 14:15

Charles Spurgeon

-Believers are not called to just mindlessly go through the motions of Christianity. There is something behind what we do. Yes, we do it to glorify Him. Yes, we do it to make Him known. But what is the attitude behind all of that. What drives us? And what we find throughout Scripture is that love is to be the motivator, the method, the means, and the mindset that initiates and supports our ministry.

-It’s interesting, John is known as the apostle of love because he speaks about it quite often. But we also find that Paul emphasizes this as well. In fact, it’s Paul that writes this chapter we are reading…often called the Love Chapter. This chapter is not about marriage (although it is obviously applicable to that relationship). This chapter is for you and me…Christ’s people, because we need a reminder about why and how we do what we do for the Lord. And what I want us to find in this chapter is that because a Christian’s life is more than just mindless action, we are moved and motivated by God’s love to us and through us. This is living the Christian life without regrets, because out of anything we do or say or feel, love is always the greatest of these.

1 Corinthians 13:1–13 ESV

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

-{pray}

-What does Paul tell us about infusing this love into our Christian walk and ministry?

1) Love is more prominent than our spiritual gifts (vv. 1-3)

-This chapter is a parenthesis—a quick detour from what Paul is originally talking about, although it is obviously applicable to what he is talking about. In the previous chapter, Paul was writing about spiritual gifts. God through His Holy Spirit empowers and gives gifts for people to use within the body of Christ (the church) for the growth and edification of the believers. Some people have one gift, some people have another gift, and you are to use that gift within the church so that the body matures and grows. If you are a believer, you have a gift, and no matter what your gift might be, it is important. This theme is then picked up also in Chapter 14.

-But here lies Chapter 13 in the middle of it all. Why did Paul go on this rant? It would appear that there were people in the church who thought that their gift was more important than other people’s gift; and so they may have looked down their noses at brothers and sisters in Christ while using their gift (supposedly) for the Lord. They thought that with their gift they were pretty hot stuff in the church. And it’s possible that while serving the Lord within the church, they poorly treated other members of the body because those members didn’t rise to their level. The Corinthian church was already a problem child, and this was just another symptom of the problems. And Paul wasn’t going to have any of that.

-To summarize, Paul tells them that no matter what it is that they do for the Lord, no matter what gifting they had, if they do not do it out of love for God and people, then it was useless, and gave no spiritual benefit to the one doing it or the one for whom it was being done. People were going around doing their thing and they thought they were such hotshots and they expected that they would be greatly rewarded for what they did, even though, in their heart, it was all about them. They shouldn’t expect any sort of heavenly reward for that.

-Paul touched upon that earlier in chapter 3, but now specifically applies it to whether love is the method and motivation or not. In chapter 3 he told them that if their life and ministry was not built upon spiritually solid ground (precious stones), then it’s nothing but wood, had, and straw, and would be burned up even though they themselves would be saved. To apply it here, if you are not moved by love in what you do for others for the sake of the Lord, do not expect those works to follow you into heaven. Even though you will make it to heaven, your supposed good deeds will not.

-But regardless of the eternal aspects, using your spiritual gifts without love is useless on this earth. If you use your spiritual gift without having a love in your heart for the God you serve and the people you serve, then it’s useless. Paul says that you could give the most wonderful sermon or bible teaching such that people are just in awe of your oratory skills, but you do not have love, then it’s nothing more than loud clamor. You could give the most impassioned speech with the most flourishing words, and if it is not moved and motivated by love, it’s about as useful as taking a drumstick and banging a cymbal into someone’s ear.

-You could be so empowered to understand and explain the deep spiritual things of the Lord from Scripture and you have such faith that you could move mountains, but if what you do is not out of love then you are nothing (even though you think you are something because of your gifts). You could do the most selfless acts possible on this earth—you could give all of your possessions away to help the poor and you could allow yourself to be killed protecting others or as a martyr for the Lord, but if you don’t do it in love you have accomplished nothing.

-We wonder how in the world that could be? Why would anyone use their gift or do all of these things if it weren’t for love. They do it out of selfishness...

2) Love is more perfect than our selfish nature (vv. 4-7)

-Did you know that you could do good works and be such a blessing for others and you could save lives and you still do it for the wrong reasons? How? Because you do it for yourself. You do it so you will be remembered fondly. You do it so that people like you and think highly of you. You do it because you want to be the center of attention. It has nothing to do with the other person, but it is all about you. That’s not love.

-So many of our modern songs are about love, but do you stop to think about the kind of love that they are talking about? So much of those love songs center on the benefit of love for the one doing the singing. It’s not about what the singer can do for the object of love, it’s about what the object of love can do for the singer. It’s about how the object of love makes the singer feel. It’s all about feeding one’s selfish nature.

-That’s not love. And Paul goes into this list of characteristics about true, biblical, Christ-like love. And you could summarize and say that true love is putting other people first to the sacrifice of one’s own self and one’s own rights and one’s own desires, and doing so without limit. With true love you don’t say: THAT’S AS FAR AS I WILL GO. That doesn’t mean you can’t protect yourself or set up certain boundaries against people who would take advantage of you. But within the context of serving other people in your service to the Lord, you don’t tell the Lord what you will and will not do. The Lord directs that part, not you.

-And you’ll also notice with these characteristics that they share a lot in common with the Fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5, as well as descriptions of how Jesus Himself loved others. And it is all about how you selflessly give yourself over to others, not expecting anything in return. What love could be more like the love God demonstrated toward us in Christ? God so loved us that He gave His Son. And because of this of love of God toward us, we then reflect and act upon that love toward others.

-We are familiar with this description of love, but do we actually pause to take the time to consider what it means, and do we figure out how to love like this? No, it’s not natural because it goes against our selfish nature—but this love is supernatural as the Spirit works in us. This is the love that is the better way—the greatest of all virtues for a Christian. So, what does Paul say about this love?

*Love is patient—it talks about controlling your wrath in spite of being provoked and the difficulties that someone might put you through. It is to be longsuffering toward your brother or sister in Christ without any complaint, and being willing to meet them halfway, even giving up your rights so that their interests are served over your own.

*Love is kind—Where you are gentle with someone and you show them constant kindness for their benefit.

*Love does not envy—It means love refuses to be jealous over somebody else’s blessings and success. You don’t look at what others have and lament what you don’t have to the point that you begin to resent those people, but instead rejoice with them that God has so blessed them.

*Love does not boast—Maybe the mirror image of envy, it means that you don’t go around bragging about what you have so as to try to stir up people’s envy. You don’t heap praise upon yourself to try and stoke the fires of resentment in someone’s heart.

*Love is not arrogant—It literally means to be puffed up. Love leaves no room for conceit where you think you are better than other people (be it a specific person or group of people). Love leaves no room for you to think highly of yourself.

*Love is not rude—It means to act disgracefully, dishonorably, and indecently. It speak of acting in defiance of social and moral standards which would result in disgrace and embarrassment and shame for others. You don’t go out of your way to embarrass someone with your crass actions or words.

*Love does not insist on its own way—rather you are willing to give up yourself and your dreams to make someone else flourish.

*Love is not irritable—It does not seek to provoke someone to make them upset. You are not trying to stir up someone’s anger.

*Love is not resentful (ESV) / keep record of wrongs—You do not keep tabs on other people’s mistakes, but are willing to quickly forgive and then forget about it.

*Loves does not rejoice in wrongdoing but rejoices in truth—Loves does not rejoice when people sin or commit injustice, but rejoices when God’s truth is lived out in people’s lives. Love never celebrates sin, knowing that sin is destructive. Love celebrates the truth of God’s Word when it is lived out.

*Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things—Love seeks for the best in people, never assuming the worst. But love also seeks what is best for people, pointing them to that which is everlasting—pointing them to Christ and the cross.

-This is true, biblical, eternal love. This is what moves and motivates us. It is all about other people, because this is what God through Christ demonstrated for us. The God of the universe willingly gave His Son, and the Son willingly gave up His rights so as to be crucified on the cross for the good of the people who would believe. Yes, this completely goes against our natural nature, that is why we need the new heart in Christ; this is why we need the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to love like this. But this is the better way, this is the greatest virtue. There is one more aspect of love...

3) Love is more permanent than our simple dreams (vv. 8-13)

-Beginning in v. 8 Paul talks about the fact that love will be permanent. Much of what we do will not go with us into eternity. But love will never end. If you are a Christian, love will always be with you. (If you are not a Christian, love will end the minute your earthly life does.) But Paul is talking to Christians about their Christian service and life. A billion years from now, we will still have love. A lot of what we think is important right now, won’t be with us. A lot of what we boast about right now, we won’t have to boast about. A lot of what we dream of won’t matter. But love will always exist.

-Again, this is within the context of the spiritual gifts. Paul says that these spiritual gifts that the Corinthians were all boasting about having won’t last forever. When we go into eternity, we will no longer need the spiritual gifts. The spiritual gifts are given for the maturity and growth and encouragement of the church while here on earth. After Christ comes and sets up the new heaven and new earth, His bride (the church) is going to be perfect—perfectly in harmony with their Savior and perfectly in harmony with one another. The spiritual gifts will no longer be needed and we’ll be doing whatever God has for us for eternity.

-So, Paul says there will come a time when prophecies and tongues/languages and knowledge will pass away. I know a lot of pastors grab this verse and say that means that these gifts have already passed away, but that’s not the context of what is being written here. Paul is saying that when the eternal state comes those things will pass away. But you know what won’t pass away? Love.

-The spiritual gifts are needed on this earth because the church and the people in the church have a lot of growing to do—from spiritual childhood to spiritual adulthood. But at the end of the age, things will be different. Not that we’ll know everything, but the manner in which we learn will be different. Instead of spiritual truths being dimmed or veiled or hidden, we will be able to see and experience them without any sort of barrier. And you know what will still be there? Love.

-And Paul ends with the great virtues: faith, hope, and love. And love is the greatest of these. Do you know why? Because love never ends. If you think about it, faith and hope won’t always be around because they won’t be needed. When you are in the eternal state you no longer need faith or hope because you will be experiencing God and Christ first hand. You won’t need faith and hope because you will no longer have a sinful body to contend with and you won’t be separated from your Savior, you will see Him face-to-face. Faith will be complete and made perfect—you will know perfectly. And God’s promises will be full and complete, so you don’t have to hope and wait for the promises to happen—you will forever be experiencing them. But you know what you will still be doing throughout eternity? You will still be loving God and loving people. That’s why it is the greatest.

Conclusion

-Many people have regretted how much time they’ve spent at work or on their phone or whatever. Many people have many regrets. But no one has ever regretted showing love to others. You never hear people lamenting on their deathbed that they loved people way too much. But you sure hear people lamenting how little they loved in life. Why live life with regrets? Whatever you do, do it out of love.

-Christian, come to the altar and ask God to shed His love abroad in your heart so that you can then share that love with others. Come and pray that love be at the center of all you do. Come and pray that you would love like Christ.

-But if you have never trusted in Jesus Christ, you don’t have love so you can’t give love. God so loved you that He sent His Son to die on the cross to pay the penalty for your sins and He rose again to give you eternal life. If you want love, then you need Christ...