Love is...

It is a joy to be back with you today. Preaching God’s word. I have enjoyed our study on the Holy Spirit, and I have appreciated these few weeks off to refresh while learning from my brothers, who preached God’s word to us faithfully. We return now to our study of first Corinthians

If you remember with me a month ago which I know for some of us is difficult, we were looking at the diversity of the spiritual gifts in the church and the unity that is required in regards to that diversity. We need to remember that these spiritual gifts that God has given, the church are given for the building up of one another, or as the scripture say, our edification. These spiritual gifts, which are given to all believers in Jesus Christ by the Holy Spirit, are meant to grow the church in spiritual maturity, not divide it with disunity.

So when we get to chapter 13, it should not surprise us that Paul gives us one of the greatest chapters in all the Bible, which is commonly referred to as the love chapter. You have most likely heard this chapter read at a wedding because of its poetic style and it’s beauty regarding the topic of love. It is Paul greatest contribution to the topic of love and it is the framework by which we as Christians understand not just how to love one another but first how God loves us.

It will take me a few weeks to preach through this chapter, and I hope at its conclusion, we as God’s people will come to cherish his love for us, and we will be driven to love others better than we have before. To those who have not surrendered to Christ, my prayer is that you will see this chapter as a beautiful description of the love that God has for sinners, I love that we have not earned, nor do we deserve.

In the context of this passage, we need to understand that Paul is addressing love in the church among brothers and sisters in Christ, because some in the church of Corinth had held such a high esteem for the gifts that they neglected the love between brothers and sisters and Christ. They were allowing the gifts to create unity an end, so they failed to reflect God’s love among God’s people. Wild this chapter appears, as if Paul is reading it from a Hallmark card, or some poster framed in his study, it actually is a rebuke to the Corinthians, who have placed gifts greater than the love of God towards one another.

Paul challenges the church as a whole to reassess the love that they display toward fellow believers and love to the world. If we possess such a divine love in us, by the power of the Holy Spirit through the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, then this love can be manifested in our lives as transformed believers in Jesus. This is not some unattainable, lofty goal that cannot be realized on earth but only in the heavenly realm. Instead, Paul’s point is that divine love reigns in all those whom he has transformed by His Spirit.

Review:

Let’s begin this afternoon, by looking at first Corinthians, chapter 12 verses, 31

1 Corinthians 12:31 NASB95

31 But earnestly desire the greater gifts. And I show you a still more excellent way.

Paul has just described the diversity of gifts in the church and how each one of us are unique in the gifting by the Holy Spirit. In verse 31 he gives the command to desire the greater gifts and it’s best understood that Paul is referencing those gifts which God deems as greater in comparison, to what man might think is greater. While Paul does not necessarily tell us in these verses, what the greater gifts are, it does seem, as if he is alluding to what gifts are not the greatest. Inverse 30 of chapter 12 this list of gifts that Paul gives ends with the gifts of tongues when “he asks all do not speak with tongues, do they all do not interpret do they?”

Similarly in chapter 12, verse 10 when Paul lists the gifts, he places kind of tongues and interpretation of tongues at the end of his list. It’s best to understand Paul and his placement of these gifts, where he is ranking them so that tongues being at the end of the list shows it’s least spiritual importance for the church.

It would appear that Paul is doing this because speaking in Corinth became the very gift that people were prizing over love for their fellow church family. Not saying that tongue speaking was worthless, but it is clear according to his lists that imp mind it should not be valued over any other gift, nor should it negate love in the church.

So then, when Paul says adverse 31 that he will show the more excellent way, what he means is that the way to exercise spiritual gifts is to route them in a love for God, and for God‘s people. If using gifts supersedes love of the Saints, then the church is in disarray. But if love is the main course of our interactions with one another, then the gifts will produce healthy fruit that leads to maturity in the body.

So then the first three verses of chapter 13 Paul will show us how love can be misplaced…

1. Devoid of love

1 Corinthians 13:1–3 NASB95

1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give all my possessions to feed the poor, and if I surrender my body to be burned, but do not have love, it profits me nothing.

To begin this chapter, we need to first understand Paul‘s definition of love. We have to understand that Paul is battling a worldly definition of love that has taken route in the church based on the culture and Paul’s day. Much like our day love is poorly defined. Love is often associated with lust and with emotion. When we say, we love someone, we are often times talking about sentimental feelings or lustful desire. This is not a healthy definition of love.

So Jesus and Paul use the Greek word agape and throw a curveball to the Greek world, because this was not a typical word used for love. You have heard other words in the Greek language that have used such as PHILA which is loving friendship between friends or EROS which is erotic lust more than love. Jesus and Paul used agape in a unique way to separate any notion of worldly action and instead identify, agape love, as a love defined by God himself in all his character and attributes.

What is Love?

1 John 4:7–11 NASB95

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love. 9 By this the love of God was manifested in us, that God has sent His only begotten Son into the world so that we might live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins. 11 Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

What we need to understand about John’s message is that God defines for us the true definition of love in the way that he has revealed himself to the world. RC Sproul writes,

“To say that love is of God means that love belongs to or is the possession of God. He possesses it as a property of His divine being, as an attribute. It also means that love is ultimately from God. Wherever love is manifested, it points back to its ground, its owner, and its source, God Himself. Again, this does not mean that all love is God, but it does mean that all genuine love proceeds from God and is rooted in Him.”

John‘s message regarding love is also the message of Jesus and Paul. For when we experienced the love of God, the agape love, then we are compelled to love him and love others. This was the message of Jesus when he said, love the Lord your God, with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and love your neighbor as yourself.

Similarly, Paul’s message to the church is that love will manifest itself above all the gifts exercised if they are being exercised by true believers, who have experienced God’s, saving love in Jesus Christ. Paul will identify characteristics of that love for us in first Corinthians chapter 13. Something interesting to note in first Corinthians 13, about the characteristics of love, is how this list corresponds with the fruits of the spirit that Paul gives us in Galatians five. The lists are not word for word and yet they link up precisely. This means that the manifestation of God’s love in our lives toward one another is because of the work of God spirit in us. He has changed us in Christ and he manifest the characteristics of God and his love in us Ward other people. Without that transformative change by the Spirit, our display of love is imitation love because it is. It rooted in God!

Therefore, when we display love to one another, we are reflecting the character of God in a world that does not understand such love, but tries to emulate it. We are reflecting a heavenly love on earth which confuses the masses and yet connects with them as they inwarldy long with a lost love with God.

Commentator Theiselton says,

“love represents “the power of the new age” breaking into the present, “the only vital force which has a future.”40 Love is that quality which distinctively stamps the life of heaven, where regard and respect for the other dominates the character of life with God as the communion of saints and heavenly hosts. … but love abides as the character of heavenly, eschatological existence.”

Remember that the church and the love is manifests is a glimpse or shadow of the heavenly realm where God’s love will have endless flow like the raging waters of Niagara Falls.

So we turn out attention then to what Paul says to the Corinthians in the first three verses of chapter 13 where Paul rebukes the Corinthians because they have misplaced their love towards one another. They have allowed wisdom (chapter 1), ignored sin (chapter 5), christian liberty (chapter 8-10) and now gifts to divide them. Paul wants to discourage this division and bring them back to displaying a loving disposition to one another.

Loveless Gifts

1 Corinthians 13:1–2 NASB95

1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.

Let’s first look at what I call loveless gifts. These verses have become very debatable in the church because of what Paul says in verse 1. The debate circles around the term “tongues of men and angels.” What does Paul mean by tongues of angels. Well we first need to recognize that Paul’s use of tongues of men solidifies the argument that tongues in the church were HUMAN LANGUAGES and NOT ECSTATIC GIBBERISH AND BABBLING like we see in modern day Pentecostal worship gatherings. These tongues that Paul was referencing were the same practiced in Acts 2 at Pentecost.

The second question then swirls around tongues of angels. By Paul’s use of this term, many have taken hold of this phrase and developed a theology of languages of heaven whereby a person empowered by the Holy Spirit can speak angelic languages, unknown to any human but instead it is language directed to God. This is where much of the that practice in pentecostalism comes from…this one phrase.

But a couple rules of bible interpretation are ignored here.

1. Never build a theology on one verse. Nowhere else in the bible does the idea of angelic languages is addressed. In fact, when angels communicate to mankind, like Mary, or Joseph or Abraham, they always speak known human languages to them. They are no speaking some heavenly language.

2. Never ignore the grammar of a passage.

If we build a theology from this verse about the ability of Holy Spirit empowered believers being able to speak angelic languages, then we are ignoring the grammatical style to which Paul is writing. v 1-3 is written in hyperbole. For those who slept through this section of English grammar or who have forgotten, hyperpole is exaggeration to bring about some emphasis in a sentence. Let’s refresh your memory with an exercise this morning.

I will begin with a common hyperbolic phrase and you finish the sentence.

Its raining CATS AND DOGS

My car cost me an ARM AND A LEG

I am so hungry I could eat a ELEPHANT

He is so mad he is spitting BULLETS

Paul’s use of hyperbole in all three of these verses, means then that Paul is not acknowledging that believers can speak some angelic language, he is simply acknowledging the extreme situation in each situation used. Notice…

if I could speak tongue of men and angels

if I have prophecy and know ALL mysteries and ALL Knowledge

If I have ALL FAITH

If i give all my possessions to the poor

If I surrender my entire life to martyrdom

This grammatical style focuses on the extreme in each case to compare that these extremes are nothing if love is absent from them. Thus Paul simply is making the point that without love, gifts for the church and gifts for towards the world are useless if they are not practiced with love for one another.

Consider the examples he uses.

In verse 1, the gift discussed was tongues, which we stated was the tongues of men. We will learn more about this in chapter 14, but Paul was seeing how tongues was the primary gift that was being abused and was causing division in the church. He states that tongues being practiced without love was like clashing and clanging sounds of brass and symbols. There is much discussion about what Paul means by these terms here. Scholars cannot agree as to what instruments or devices Paul might be referencing. Whether he is talking about big brass plates like we might hear in Chinese music or on the gong show, or small brass cymbals like on our modern day drum set, we are not clear on. But what regardless, the hyperbole is clear enough to understand that the sound that is coming from these devices is not pleasing to the hearer. He is speaking negatively and therefore, to have tongues without love is to produce a sound that no one enjoys.

Second, Paul mentions that those who might have all knowledge and know all mysteries and yet lack love. Again, it is impossible to have all knowledge and know all the mysteries of God. In the same way, it is impossible to have all faith as to not just move mountains but eliminate them from existence. Paul is not acknowledging that this level of faith is possible, he is simply stating a condition to consider and how futile that gift or power might be if it lacked love accompanying it.

We must acknowledge as a church that we can practice spiritual gifts without love as well. We can see these gifts as elevating us above one another and we can use those gifts in such a way that we seek to elevate ourselves above others. We can allow our positions of leadership in the church or common responsibilities to lead us to an attitude of arrogance and not humility. Paul wants the church today to understand that love must be key when we gather and serve one another in the church. We must first look out for the interests of others more than ourselves. Notice Paul’s message, “if I have not love…I am nothing…it has no benefit for me.” We actually take away from the purposes of spiritual gifts if we don’t display a divine love and grace towards one another. Love is the foundation of the church because it is rooted in Christ and his loving work of redemption on the cross.

Next, Paul asks his reader to consider gifts to the world. These last two statements in verse 3 have the theme of sacrifice and yet sacrifice without love is misguided at best. Paul focused on a lack of love in the church when exercising gifts and now he carries it further to the world. Consider an absence of love when one cares for the poor. Is this a paradox since a person is hypothetically giving all his possessions to feed the poor and lacks love? how can that be? The reality is that a person could give all this possessions to a charity or ministry and yet it not be for loving reasons. He could be seeking fame and attention, not counting the cost of such a sacrifice.

Remember the parable of the Pharisee and the tax collector who went to the temple to pray. The pharisee in his prayer displayed a lack of love in their self-righteous attitude towards the social outcast.

Luke 18:11 NASB95

11 “The Pharisee stood and was praying this to himself: ‘God, I thank You that I am not like other people: swindlers, unjust, adulterers, or even like this tax collector.

In his prayer, the Pharisee displays contempt towards others instead of a compassion and love for those whom he was supposed to be serving with the love of God. The point Jesus is making is that prayer must come from a heart that is reflective of humility and love for others.

An Exposition of the First Epistle to the Corinthians Superiority of Love to All Other Gifts

A man may give away his whole estate, or sacrifice himself, and be in no sense the gainer. He may do all this from vanity, or from the fear of perdition, or to purchase heaven, and only increase his condemnation. Religion is no such easy thing. Men would gladly compound by external acts of beneficence, or by penances, for a change of heart; but the thing is impossible. Thousands indeed are deluded on this point, and think that they can substitute what is outward for what is inward, but God requires the heart, and without holiness the most liberal giver or the most suffering ascetic can never see God

In the same way, our gifts to the poor, without love and true compassion for them, are simply vain and empty acts to generate a standing before God or acknowledgment from the world. We can also engage in empty rituals when we come to worship each week, if we come without love for our brothers and sisters and wihtout a true desire to worship the living God. If we come to be seen or acknowledged in our attendance, then we are missing the point.

Ask yourself what is my primary reason for coming to church each week?

Is it to gain acceptance before God?

Is it to have friendships in this life?

Is it only because my parents make me come and I don’t want to let them down?

Friend, if it is any reason other than the worship of the One True God who provided a way of salvation for your lost soul then it is the wrong reason. There may be secondary blessings but our primary purpose for worship to celebrate the love that God has shown the world in giving us the Son as a way of reconciliation and peace with God our creator.

Paul wants all to consider such a invalid reason for worship that lacks the true love of God within a person. If you see such a lack of GOd’s love in your life, then perhaps you might also see that God is absent from your life as well. Looking back to 1 John again,

1 John 4:7–8

7 Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God. 8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

1 John 3:10 NASB95

10 By this the children of God and the children of the devil are obvious: anyone who does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor the one who does not love his brother.