God’s Love is the Greatest

Intro:

Dearest Jimmy,

No words could ever express the great unhappiness I’ve felt since breaking our engagement. Please say you’ll take me back. No one could ever take your place in my heart, so please forgive me. I love you, I love you, I love you!

Yours forever, Marie.

P.S. And congratulations on winning the state lottery.

Defining Love: What love is not

This is the way the world thinks about love. It is a word we use in order to gain some advantage over others. I love you….so give them something. We might call the world’s view of love conditional interest, conditional attention.

The dictionary defines love as :

“a great interest and pleasure in something”

“an intense feeling of deep affection”

But the Bible has a different definition for love. It doesn’t define it according to man’s relationship to another person. It defines love as an attribute of God. Therefore, as God is revealed to us in Scripture we can understand love, divine love that is found in Him.

What is Love?

As human beings, we have to be deprogrammed for the world’s sentimentality and conditional acts of love. We must be renewed in our minds so that we not only understand what God’s love is but we know how to rightly display that love to the world.

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.

This verse is overflowing with wonderful truths about God and his love. All of this is pertinent to our study in 1 Corinthians 13. John writes that God is the source of love so to understand it and display it, our love must flow out of God. This requires we are transformed by that love and to be transformed by it is to know Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. This is how we understand love when we behold and trust in Jesus Christ. God does not just tell us he loves us but he shows us compassion and grace in love. Therefore, God defines love for us as action and not feeling.

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.”

A person that displays genuine love, love that is defined by God, only does so when God’s love is the manifesting that love through a person by the Spirit. This requires a change of heart and a transformed and regenerated life in Christ. This is why John says

1 John 4:8 NASB95

8 The one who does not love does not know God, for God is love.

We see love demonstrated for us by God sending forth his Son, the Lord Jesus. His perfect life on this earth, his sacrificial death and his resurrection are God’s way of showing unconditional love for sinners. Therefore God is showing the world that love is an action of unconditional compassion and mercy towards those undeserving of such things.

Romans 5:8 NASB95

8 But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.

Those who do not display such divine love therefore should see that they do not belong to Christ, for His Spirit is not manifesting that love in them. This is a great evaluating tool for all who read the bible with honesty. You are not called to be perfectly loving in your own strength, but those who profess Christ as Lord should see the fruit of God’s love in them consistently, although imperfectly.

If that does not exist, they should heed the words of John and realize that they do not know God nor have a relationship with him.

But those who do belong to Christ will display Godly love towards their brothers and sisters in Christ and to the world. It is the way that the Lord prepares the way for his gospel truth to go forth. We love others and specifically we love them by proclaiming truth of God and his love that is displayed in Jesus Christ. The fruits of the Spirit listed in Galatians 5 begin with love because the Spirit produces love in us. It is the way that the Lord reflects heavenly change and renewal in this dark and sinful world.

Commentator Thieslton writes,

“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.”

I say all this because this is the message of Paul to the Corinthians church. Paul writes the letter to Corinth to address different issues within the church body and it is a helpful manual for believers today of the Christlike way we may structure and act in the body of Christ.

In chapters 12-14, one area that Paul addresses with the Corinthians is their lack of divine love while exercising spiritual gifts. Some in that church community had began elevating the possession and use of spiritual gifts in such a way that they were not showing love towards each other. Paul in chapter 13, actually is taking a reprieve in argument about gifts, to rebuke the Corinthians in their lack of love for one another and in conjunction, define true Godly love for them.

So while many of us have seen this verse used in weddings and Valentine cards, we can understand that the beauty of these poetic words from Paul is actually focusing the Corinthian church to practice true Godly love.

So that we understand where Paul is going, lets briefly look at what he is saying in v 1-3. These verses are the clear rebuke from Paul towards the lack of love in the Corinthian church. He is using hyperbole here to make his point of rebuke. If you slept in English and grammar, let be reminded that hyperbole is exaggeration in order to make a point.

Let’s interact for a moment:

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.

Now what we now then understand is that God’s love always is superior to all gifts that God has given to his people. Without love displayed towards one another, those gifts have no value for the church.

But I want to spend the majority of our time looking at the details of God’s love in His people. This is what Paul is doing for the Corinthians and us today. We won’t get through many of them but with my time remaining, we will look a few.

Details of God’s Love

1. Suffering Long

1 Corinthians 13:4 (NASB95)

4 Love is patient

Literally love continually suffers long. The context of such a phrase is that one suffers long with injury that has been directed at him or her. We can all relate the this context in a world full of sin where insults, hate and physical attacks are hurled at us. Sin not only invites conflict with others, but sin in this world invites circumstances that require us to suffer long with them. Bodily ailments and disease require us to suffer long or be patient.

Think of this aspect of love as defensive for the Christian life. Suffering long is the mental, emotional control of a person to withhold and stand firm from the passions that may lead us to react negatively and ungodly in dire situations. One commentator describes it as “holding out before fuming and breaking into flames” (Rogers and Rogers, 379).

It is defensive in our Christian conduct because we are preventing acts of unholiness from rising up from the well of our struggle with the flesh. Instead, of lashing out in anger at our enemy or our circumstances, the Spirit empowers the patience and the longsuffering to hold steady.

We can see longsuffering in Jesus Christ, which accusations about his insanity came at him from his own family. He said nothing. When the religious leaders called him a blasphemer, when he was insulted and sit upon he retailiated not.

Isaiah 53:7 NASB95

7 He was oppressed and He was afflicted, Yet He did not open His mouth; Like a lamb that is led to slaughter, And like a sheep that is silent before its shearers, So He did not open His mouth.

You could also say that God’s longsuffering with our sin, not immediately crushing us when we fail him is an act of his love. When God clothed Adam and Eve in the garden, casting them out in isolation but not immediate annihilation is an act of love. While separation from God’s presence was a challenge, they lived, they still were able to be fruitful and multiply, and they were given the promise that their rebellion had a cure in one who would bring resolution and peace to mankind again.

Peter tells us of God’s loving patience in

2 peter 3:9

2 Peter 3:9 NASB95

9 The Lord is not slow about His promise, as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing for any to perish but for all to come to repentance.

What a gracious act of love for God to long-suffer with us so humanity can come to know of this peace with God that was provided in the work of Jesus Christ upon the cross.

So then, we are called to long suffer as the first component of love. As I said last week, there are clear connections to Galatians 5 and the fruits of the Spirit and this list of the characteristics of love. In that list, we read that the Spirit creates love, peace and patience. All three of these connect us to long-suffering because we love as God loves, we seek peace as the peacemakers that God creates us to be. Be are long suffering with the insults and injures of this world.

Now let’s see how longsuffering connects us to #2 in our list of characteristics of Godly love.....

2. Suffering Long with Kindness

1 Corinthians 13:4 (NASB95)

4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous; love does not brag and is not arrogant,

I call this suffering long with kindness, because kindness is the offense as longsuffering is the defense of these moments. How do we respond to insults and injuries, we push back rage and revenge, and we put on kindness. Kindness means a willingness to be helpful and useful. Couple that action with those in this world, those who hurt or attack us, and we see much clearer God’s love manifest in his people.

Who has the capacity to be a helpful hand to our enemies? Who has the mental or emotional fortitude to look into the eyes of those who hate us and instead of extending a fist of rage and revenge, we offer a helping hand?

God gives us that strength in his spirit and its only by His spirit that his people can accomplish kindness.

Let us consider the opposite response, an unholy response to injuries that was mentioned previously- revenge. Revenge is the opposite of kindness. Revenge is the plan of Satan while Kindness is the work of God. Revenge led Cain to murder his brother while kindness was displayed in David towards his pursuing son, Absalom.

Jonathan Edwards writes,

“There are many ways in which men do that which is revengeful: not merely by actually bringing some immediate suffering on the one that may have injured them, but by anything, either in speech or behavior, which shows a bitterness of spirit against him for what he has done. Thus, if after we are offended or injured, we speak reproachfully to our neighbor, or of him to others, with a design to lower or injure him, and that we may gratify the bitter spirit we feel in our hearts for the injury that neighbor has done us, this is revenge.” -Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits

Instead of taking the judgment of God and his wrath into our own hands, making it our mission, instead Spirit-born believers will put on kindness. We will be helps to those who have harmed us. It may not be initially but under conviction, we will put away wrath and put on Christ love.

“In him that exercises the Christian spirit as he ought, there will not be a passionate, rash, or hasty expression, or a bitter, exasperated countenance, or an air of violence in the talk or behavior. But, on the contrary, the countenance and words and demeanor will all manifest the savor of peaceableness and calmness and gentleness.”Edwards, Charity and Its Fruits

But kindness is more than just how we respond to the worst case scenario, but the Christian love that leads to kindness is one that is always a doer of good and who lends a helping hand. We live a culture these days where we see a generation who is more eager to use their hands to hold the phones that record someone in distress rather than use those hands to help.

The Good Samaritan is an example of kindness, especially towards a cultural enemy because he was a help to a man in an unexpected moment. The Samaritan shows kindness by caring for the injured Jew, over an above what one might even consider a normal method of help. The Samaritan went to great lengths of personal sacrifice to show kindness and help towards this man.

Therefore, when we act in loving kindness, we are doing good and being a help to the saved and the lost. All are our neighbor whom the Lord calls us to love and as our neighbors, we will seek to care and help them in a Spirit born kindness that comes from God.

God’s kindness manifest in Christ

Christ is kindness personified! He was a help to the helpless during his earthly ministry. He was kind to social and personal enemies like the Samaritan woman and his friend Judas. He healed beggars instead of ignoring them. He cared for widows and desperate fathers like Jairus. Most importantly, the work of Jesus on the cross reflects God’s kindness towards sinners in Christ.

Colossians 3:12–13 NASB95

12 So, as those who have been chosen of God, holy and beloved, put on a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience; 13 bearing with one another, and forgiving each other, whoever has a complaint against anyone; just as the Lord forgave you, so also should you.

Paul roots his argument to the Colossians that our forgiveness, compassion and kindness flows from those who have truly tasted the grace and forgiveness of Christ. How could we still hold grudges, act unkindly or even carry out revenge towards others if we say that Christ is our Lord and we have forgiveness in Him for so much. Christian, we cannot hold onto bitterness and resentment in one hand and cling to Christ with the other. Instead, Christian love compels us to show kindness and be a help to others, even our enemies.

3. Being Content

1 Corinthians 13:4 (NASB95)

4 Love is patient, love is kind and is not jealous;

The first two statement are given in the positive form and most of the others are in the negative. We will look at the remaining commands in both their positive and negative respects.

The third characteristic of love is Not being jealous. This is probably one of the easiest GK words to remember because ZELOO which sounds alot like our English word zealous. If you are zealous for something, you can positively act with passion towards accomplishing a task or goal in your life.

Isaiah 26:11 (NASB95)

11 O Lord, Your hand is lifted up yet they do not see it. They see Your zeal for the people and are put to shame; Indeed, fire will devour Your enemies.

God has a passionate love for his people that is called zeal. But in the negative, that zeal can be sinful with man. Zeal can be for that which does not belong to us. Zeal for other people’s fame, other people’s successes, or other people’s popularity. We can desire that which does not belong to us and therefore we fall into the sin of jealousy. We can imagine how jealousy was swarming around the idea of spiritual gifts in the church at Corinth. As the gift divided believer from believer, it was clearly over that distinction of gifts that lead some to covet or be jealous over the gifts others have.

Jealousy in its root form is when a person is not content with what God has given them. Jealousy is a failure to trust in the sovereign provision of God for your life. Instead of trusting that the Lord has given us exactly what we need for our lives, we can fall into jealousy toward others and fail to love them. How can we love someone if we are jealous over what belongs to them? Instead of love, our jealousy leads to contempt, rivalry and competitiveness.

Jonathan Edwards writes,

“this spirit is especially called envy, when we dislike and are opposed to another's honor or prosperity, because, in general, it is greater than our own, or because, in particular, they have some honor or enjoyment that we have not. It is a disposition natural in men, that they love to be uppermost; and this disposition is directly crossed, when they see others above them. And it is from this spirit that men dislike and are opposed to the prosperity of others, because they think it makes those who possess it superior, in some respect, to themselves. And from this same disposition, a person may dislike another's being equal to himself in honor or happiness, or in having the same sources of enjoyments that he has. For as men very commonly are, they cannot bear a rival much, if any, better than a superior, for they love to be singular and alone in their eminence and advancement.”

One of the great examples of jealousy instead of love in the Bible is the story of Cain and Abel in Gen 4 where jealous consumed Cain. The word jealousy is not used in this story but it isn’t hard to deduce such an emotion in Cain. It is written that God accepted the offering of Abel and not Cain because it was Abel that gave God his best while the attitude behind Cain’s offering was arrogance and unbelief.

The writer of Hebrews gives clarity,

Hebrews 11:4 (NASB95)

4 By faith Abel offered to God a better sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained the testimony that he was righteous, God testifying about his gifts, and through faith, though he is dead, he still speaks.

Cain’s offering in contrast lacked faith and in his anger, he retaliated. But instead of being angry with God, Cain turned to his brother Abel and in jealousy and wrath murdered his brother. Instead of being content with God’s judgment of the offerings and moving to respond in faith, Cain acted in jealous hate toward his brother and towards God himself.

When jealousy consumes us, we are driven from love to hate. We hate those who have what we want and we hate God for not giving to us accordingly to what we think that we need.

James 3:14–16 NASB95

14 But if you have bitter jealousy and selfish ambition in your heart, do not be arrogant and so lie against the truth. 15 This wisdom is not that which comes down from above, but is earthly, natural, demonic. 16 For where jealousy and selfish ambition exist, there is disorder and every evil thing.

We must see that it was envy and jealousy that put the Lord Jesus on the cross by his enemies. When Jesus stood trial before the Jews under Roman arrest, and Pilate gave the Jews the choice of releasing Jesus, the Scriptures tell us,

Matthew 27:17–18 NASB95

17 So when the people gathered together, Pilate said to them, “Whom do you want me to release for you? Barabbas, or Jesus who is called Christ?” 18 For he knew that because of envy they had handed Him over.

The religious leaders had been filled with demonic envy in their unbelief and this led them to allow a criminal to go free while sending an innocent man to perish on the cross.

God calls us to turn from our envy and jealousy and to put on contentment.

1 Timothy 6:6–8 NASB95

6 But godliness actually is a means of great gain when accompanied by contentment. 7 For we have brought nothing into the world, so we cannot take anything out of it either. 8 If we have food and covering, with these we shall be content.

Paul reminds us that God has given us all that we need and in proportion to what he desires for us to have. As God’s people called to love as God loves, then we must not allow jealousy and envy to affect our love for others. Instead, when we are content, we will love as Christ loved us. We will be filled with joy at the success and accolades of others. We will rejoice in good gifts that God has given them.

Conclusion

Let me stop here and call us to evaluate our hearts this afternoon. Does the love of God dwell within us? Do we put on these aspects of love, although imperfectly, yet consistently? Are we longsuffering? Are we seeking to help others? Are we joyful at the blessings of others as we rest in the contentment of what God has given us?

Paul’s description of love in these verses should leads all of us to repentance as the Spirit reveals some of these areas that we need growth in.

Others here with us or online, may see for the first time that God’s love does not dwell with them and therefore, they need to repent and trust Christ. He will in turn change your heart into a heart that loves as God loves.

Love ever gives. Forgives, outlives,

And ever stands With open hands.

And while it lives, It gives, For this is love’s prerogative—

To give, and give, and give.

- unknown