The More Excellent Way

1 Corinthians 13

Jesus made a promise in the book of Matthew: “I will build my church.”

There’s a mission put before us. Jesus desires to build up the church and use us to do it. If I were to ask you the question: How do you know if that goal is being accomplished, what would you say?

Like a building when it’s built up the church gets stronger, and like any body, the church, which is compared to a body, grows up, matures and is made stronger.

How do you know when that is happening? What is the sign that this mission is successful?

Paul and Jesus Himself has only one answer. The true sign of Christian maturity and the key characteristic of a holy life: Love for one another.

The Apostle Paul since the beginning of this letter has been laboring to help the church in Corinth be unified by showcasing how the gospel gets at the root of their sin problems and their deepest questions regarding church life and obedience in a pagan culture.

Chapter 13 is I believe a climactic part of the book. after chapter 14, he begins landing the plane. It seems as if everything in this book has been building up to this point.

Our culture has always been confused and sought to distort what true love actually is.

We have musical artists asking the question “What is love?” and other ones have said “All you need is love” and in our current culture that elevates sexuality to the highest place declares, “love is love.”

But what is true, genuine love? Why is it so crucial?

The main point of our passage and what we will see more deeply is that the main evidence of a church growing in unity is not the advancing of Spiritual gifts but their abounding in love. God’s love in the church is both the foundation for growth and the result of growth.

Paul provides the “more excellent way” toward building the church and growing in unity and does so by pointing out…

The Priority of Love Vs 1-3

The Portrait of Love Vs 4-7

The Permanence of Love Vs 8-13

The Priority of Love Vs 1-3

If you look back at chapter 12 vs 31 again, we see Paul’s priority being revealed (Read vs 31)

This isn’t difficult even for our culture to understand right? The word love, although abused and misused in our culture, is seen as the chief thing. You watch any movie really— it can be mindless action, blow people up, Tom Cruise riding his motor cycle on the top of a train through a cloud of smoke kind of movie, and the movie is seen as incomplete or lacking if there is not some love interest or romantic sub narrative. Our culture views love as the number one priority. The same goes for Paul but he’ll more carefully define his terms.

He’s declaring, after laboring to show the importance of spiritual gifts and the way the body is suppose to be functioning, to continue laying this foundation by stressing that there is a more excellent way. In other words, what is really important? Even more important than individual charisma and gifting?

He goes on...

Love takes priority over tongues (Read vs 1)

He’s speaking here of the gift of tongues. Justin has briefly pointed out in weeks past that the gift of speaking in tongues was a miraculous sign from God whereby a person would speak in a known human language that they never learned or even heard before.

This was a gift in the church that the corinthians were abusing and were enamored with. Of course, it would seem natural that with a gift like this, you would want to see it practiced widely and unashamedly. As you may already know, the gift of tongues which i believe is the same gift we see in the book of Acts on the day of pentecost, was an incredible gospel tool that actually validated the message the apostles preached and brought unity.

In the beginning of time, languages were not necessarily a thing. Back in Genesis 11, people gathered together who all spoke the same language. There was unity. But they ended up unifying around the wrong purpose and cause when the desired to build a tower up to heaven to make a name for themselves.

But God, seeing their pride, stops there building project by confusing their languages. He scrambles peoples tongues and now everyone is speaking different languages and they end up having to part ways and they were scattered (how can you build with other people if you all don’t speak the same language?). This is known as the tower of babel, where people became divided simply because they could not understand each others languages.

Now fast forward to Acts chapter 2. The Lord Jesus is risen And alive. He ascends to heaven and then pours out the gift of the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit comes, the disciples start speaking in other languages and when visitors from other nations were visiting the region, all of a sudden they hear the truth of God being proclaimed in their own language. The disciples never learned these languages before! As a result many people believe the message and are added to the church.

Do you see what’s happening? The gospel breaks down ethnic boarders and language barriers by the Spirit pouring out this gift to the church. The Spirit at pentecost was the great un-babeling of the tower of babel.

But Paul knows something here, as amazing as that gift is and the seeming unity that it has brought to the church, if its not practiced with the foundation and motivation of love, it becomes an annoyance and it no longer builds up anybody.

He even speaks in hyperbole here: If I speak wit the tongues of men, and of ANGELS- Quick side note: I do not believe Paul is saying that there is such a thing as angelic tongues and people can have that gift. If that is a thing, that’s not what Paul is proving here. Paul probably says this because the corinthians probably attached more spiritual significance to this gift above other gifts.

to put it in modern vernacular, it’s like he’s saying “You really like the gift of tongues, well guess what, even if you spoke in not just human languages but in ANGELIC languages—the most exalted languages imaginable — apart from love, you would be like a clanging cymbal.

Ever heard someone just banging a loud cymbal? There’s only one reaction to that if it’s not played along with other drums (cover your ears). Nobody wants to hear that.

It’s annoying. Irritating.

Love takes priority over miraculous knowledge and faith (Read vs 2)

If you can prophesy, Paul says, and have all the knowledge in the world (again, hyperbole because Paul, as we see later in the chapter, doesn’t believe someone can possess full, complete and perfect knowledge this side of eternity), and yet you do not love your brother or sister, you are nothing.

Paul mentions previously the gift of Faith- This ability to believe God for things that are otherwise impossible on the human level- he says if your faith is so great that you can remove the insurmountable obstacles of life, but you don’t love, you ARE nothing.

Something to know about me, is I love to learn. I love gaining theological knowledge and imparting knowledge to others. I love to preach God’s Word- But something I realize and have to remind myself of time and time again, at the end of the day, you don’t care too much what I know or say until you know that I care about you.

I warn you as I warn myself, bible scholar out there, you can possess great big theological brains but if you have the heart disease of lacking love for God and your brother/sister all your knowledge means nothing. If my dad taught me anything as a minister is that the MAN is the message; his life ought never to contradict the gift.

Now, Paul’s not pitting knowledge up against love here. You can love someone BY giving God’s revealed Word. He’s correcting the misplacement of these very good gifts. When they are idolized and misplaced and divorced from love that’s when they become useless or worse, harmful.

Love takes priority over giving your possessions including your body (Read vs 3)

if I just give it all out generously little by little until it’s all gone, and even if that means delivering up my own body to die as a martyr- Someone who dies for their belief in Christ, but I don’t love, I gain nothing.

You might think, well, duh. If you give away all you own even your life, of course you don’t gain anything because all your possessions are gone!

Well Paul is saying, like he’s been laboring to communicate in this text— all of these gifts and sacrifice done apart from love will bring nothing of spiritual or eternal value.

God is not interested in the church just meeting immediate felt needs. He does meet our needs of course but what’s of greater value is our own soul and growth in Christ. He’s more concerned with my Spiritual state and eternal things than temporary things.

a church that is very busy, but lacks love, will not produce anything of eternal significance And leave little impact on a cancel culture that is characterized by hate, hostility

Paul here, causing us to see how we so often don’t keep the main thing the main thing.

Transition: What is this love he’s talking about?

The Portrait of Love Vs 4-7

This section is where we can see a definition of sorts for the word “love”. The classic greek word ἀγάπη that many of us have heard before. Usually, this word is used in contexts where God’s in particular is displayed.

Did you know there are fake diamonds and genuine or real diamonds? I was curious, so I googled how to know whether a diamond is fake or real. Among other tests you can take a diamond and if it sinks to the bottom of a glass of water, it’s real, if it floats on the surface, it’s likely fake.

So too, the word love is thrown around in our culture but it’s become this nebulous, abstract idea rather than something concrete. Paul gives a concrete list that defines love or provides a test to see if love is actually genuine. A lot of what our culture calls “love” is actually harmful whereas God’s definition of love produces flourishing.

(Read vs 4- First whole sentence)

Something important to know is that although our english translations describe love using adjectives, the original language uses verbs. Present tense action words.

Love is the giving of oneself for the betterment of another and it’s an action. While love may not be less than an emotion we feel, it is so much more than that and actually can transcend what we feel at times.

First, stated positively. Love is patient. Patience here can also be rendered as “long suffering” Love patiently endures and suffers long with the failures and hardships of others. It’s the opposite of our culture that worships convenience and instant gratification. Our culture is a busy culture. A hurried culture. The reality is when you are a hurried and rushed person, you cannot love. When a boy rushes to get in bed with a girl he’s dating, or when you move in with someone who is not legally your spouse, that’s not love. I don’t care how many times someones says “oh, but we love each other.” that is not love. Love never does something to hinder someone else's relationship with God. In friendships in the church, love doesn’t move on to the next friend when things get hard or someone hurts you. You suffer long with that person.

Love is kind. Love intentionally displays the kindness of God.

Now stated negatively, Love doesn’t envy or boast, arrogant or rude. In other words, love is the opposite of pride. Love doesn’t boast about their own accomplishments or praise themselves. But love also doesn’t envy other people’s successes. This is one of the greatest hindrances of unity in the church, right? We can so often weep with those who weep. A lot of us are extremely empathetic when other people in the body suffer. But what about when another brother or sister succeeds? Why does this even need to be said right? People succeed all the time and it doesn’t bother us. Celebrities, people we read about online, but the shocking thing is that we get bothered when a friend succeeds. Your friend get’s that promotion you were waiting to receive. Your friend buys that house you’ve been saving for. Your friend gets that wonderful opportunity. You know our love for God and others is cold when the first response is not to be happy for our friend, but to be envious the moment they succeed.

Read rest of vs 5

Not insistent on its own way- Like Philippians 2 says, love always humbly puts the needs of others above their own.

Not irritable- easy provoked- easily frustrated.

Not resentful or more literally, to constantly bring up others faults. Or as you may have heard it, keeping a record of wrongs. The original language has the idea of counting up other’s sins.

Vs 6

Not rejoicing at wrong doing but with the truth.

Remember where we have been in first corinthians when Paul is correcting the sins of division, sexual immorality, and suing other Christians, he’s in a sense saying here that those things are the opposite of love. Love doesn’t take pleasure in the things that grieve the heart of God and harm others.

And notice the contrast, it’s not wrong doing and good deeds, it’s wrong doing and truth! Evil is the opposite of truth. Love tells the truth and rejoices in the truth. When you pursue sin, you are believing the lies of hell but when you love you are obeying God and believing the promises that come from heaven. This is where you can see the stark contrast that can be seen when someone from our culture looks at the church. When you see the word “love” thrown around in our culture today what is really meant is the word lust. We can see from this text the key difference between love and lust. You know what it is? Lust is when you can’t wait to get. Love is when you can’t wait to give.

Vs 7

Stated postively again, love bears all, believes all, hopes all, and endures all. Again just a pithy and stylistic way for Paul to sum up the enduring, patient, gracious nature of love.

He’s not saying we turn blind eyes to sin, he’s saying that we live with one another in such a way that our love is coupled with faith in the promises of God. Our love isn’t coupled with cynicism. We believe the best about one another not because we’re great but because we believe in a powerful God who’s gospel changes lives and raises the dead.

We have hope in a God who is love and therefore can bear with one another’s failures and shortcomings and sins.

We often put this text on plaques and pillows in our homes, but often times there is no harder text to read.

I can often feel my own shortcomings when I read a text like this. You need to know that I am preaching to myself as much as I am preaching to you. I feel crushed when I read these words. What hope is there if this is the true standard of love? Have you found anyone that has done this? I mean truly done this? Motives and all?

No one has. You know, you’re suppose see that. The summation of the law is found here. Love to God and love to neighbor, Christ says, is the very summation of the law and the prophets. Elsewhere, Paul says whoever loves has fulfilled the law.

Only one person has done this. And this is where I believe it’s important to look away from self here and notice what Paul is doing.

We look to a God who is love 1 John 4:8. And His son Jesus Christ who is very embodiment of love itself. He is the true gift of love and the one who demonstrated the Father’s love in that while we were yet sinners, He died for us on the cross of calvary.

Only Jesus is perfectly patient and kind to sinners, from eternity and throughout His time on earth, Jesus never envied or boasted in His own accomplishments, He not once had an arrogant thought or spoke a rude word. He always put others needs above His own and didn’t insist on His own way; He wasn’t easily frustrated, there was a record of wrongs stacked against us, but Jesus took them upon Himself so that he remembers them no more, while Jesus was a friend of sinners he not once rejoiced with wrong doing but always rejoiced in God’s truth, in fact, He IS the truth. He is the truth incarnate who took upon Himself the wrath that loveless people deserve. And He rose again three days later and purifies for Himself people who are now empowered to love.

Friends, what is 1 Corinthians 13 other than a description and portrait of the Lord Jesus? This is who He is and HOW he acted to love sinful man and how He continually loves us now. He did all of this and more and He did it in your place.

But secondarily, we now know where to look to have the power to accomplish love in the church. We look to the very embodiment of love Himself. Why does love produce growth and unity even more than spiritual gifts? because love displays Jesus. When His character is put on display, we behold Him, and when we behold the glory of God in the face of Jesus, we are all transformed.

And when we are transformed, the Spirit of God is working in us. And what does He work in us? Well, remember Galatians 5? The fruit of the Spirit is love… What are these fruits of the Spirit? They are a reflection of the character of Jesus. Some believe that it’s really only 1 fruit which is love and love simply encompasses the rest. This is at the top of the list, and the key characteristic of a holy life and the result of Spiritual gifts at work.

When you struggle to love, you come to 1 corinthians 13 not just to grab your to-do list for how to do better but to look to a crucified savior who grants you power to patiently and sacrificially love others.

If you’re still not convinced of the primacy of love among God’s people, Paul goes on to discuss...

The Permanence of Love Vs 8-13

(Read vs 8-10)

He begins with love never ends. But other things, such as spiritual gifts, will.

If God never ends, He is eternal, and He is love, then His love will never end. Again we’re not talking about love in the abstract here. Love has a name and it’s Jesus Christ- Love cannot be truly understood or talked about apart from Jesus Himself- Its His very essence.

So because of this, we have to conclude that love never ends.

Paul speaks of the gift of tongues and prophesy, they are temporary and only serve a temporary purpose. They will pass away.

Gifts that the Corinthians possessed in their day that revealed special revelation about God all pass away; but love doesn’t.

He gives the reason why. Notice the word “FOR” in vs 9. For or because spiritual gifts only give a partial knowledge right now. We don’t know all there is to know about God. Our knowledge of him is incomplete.

As I prepare to preach one of my weaknesses is finding helpful illustrations but I love it when the biblical author himself gives me one! Paul uses an illustration now. (Read vs 11)

Paul is using the illustration of being child and the knowledge a child has verses the knowledge that same child possesses once he or she reaches adulthood. Ever said as an adult, “if I only knew then what I know now.” We know that when we become adults we have a more complete and full knowledge of the world that we didn’t have when we were children.

If you still dont get it, think about what he says next (read vs 12)

Do you see the comparison and the contrast?

Being a child is compared to the “now”- this present evil age we live in. We’re Seeing and knowing God only through a mirror. Growing into into an adult is the “then”- when we see jesus face to face.

So when the perfect comes, that is Jesus- When love Himself returns to the this earth, “then” we shall see him face to face. But now, we know him like we know a mirror reflection. Your reflection in the mirror is not you, it’s a reflection of you.

All these spiritual gifts that Paul has been teaching us about, are but a dim glimpse of the knowledge of God- they will pass away fully once Christ returns. We experience the culture of heaven in the church on earth. That’s what the previous section details. but The culture of heaven will break in to this world in its fullness when Jesus returns. Love will be before our eyes and we will touch Him, and have a fuller knowledge of Him than ever before.

Then He ends (Read vs 13)

Among all the things that will last forever, faith and hope and love, the preeminent one is love.

Conclusion

Struggling to find your role in the church? You hear that everyone has a spiritual gift but your obsessing over finding yours?

Please, hear the call in the passage: Love one another.

Do you have many Spiritual gifts? Are you very busy in the church? Hear the call in the passage: Love one another.

Because it’s by this the church is built, and by this will this world know that we belong to Jesus and are His disciples. This is it.

the key evidence for a church growing in unity is not advancing in Spiritual gifts but in abounding love. God’s love in the church is both the foundation for growth and the result of growth.

Will you, this week find that one person in the body of Christ, perhaps someone not like you, and intentionally show them the love of Christ? Could it be investing your time in another believer to help them follow Christ? Could it be not settling for “i’m good” when you ask them how their doing but express genuine care? How ever the Spirit works in you apply this I pray you respond.

One thing I know i’m grateful for, is the love this church displays and has displayed to my family and I. I’m not saying we’re perfect or everyone has the exact same experience, we hope you do, but by and large, you practice this really well. I can say with all my heart, I love you. I know talk is cheap and I don’t love you with my actions as I ought, but truly, you are loved ones in my Mind.

After all, we have encountered the sacrificial love God through Christ- with the gospel as our foundation, and the Spirit will shape the cuture here. Will you join me in praying for that? Let’s pray.