What is Love pt 1

Intro

Illustr When I was in high school, I thought I knew exaclty what love was. I thought I haad that junk figured out. I had watched all the ahllmark movies, I had seen romance the likes of peter parker and gwen in amazing spiderman. I had it figured out. I knew that love was just this feeling you get, this spark. But that never seemed to work as I would “fall out of love” over and over again. And then girls would “fall out of love” with me and dump me. But as I got older, I realized that defintion of love is very empty. It’s shady. What even is love? as the song says. What is LOVE? and maybe you have that same question. What even is love. Well waht better place to look than in the Bible.

Matthew 22:36–40 ““Teacher, which command in the law is the greatest?” He said to him, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the greatest and most important command. The second is like it: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the Prophets depend on these two commands.””

But how can we even do this? How can we love people around us. Paul gives us an answer in his letter to the church at Corinth

Now to set the stage a little bit, the church at Corinth had some issues. It was only a few years old and they were in an area full of pagan worship, they were a little more wealthy, and the church was full of problems. They were suing eachother, were confused on marriage, they weren’t sure about ordinances in the church, and they really had some issues with spiritual gifts.

They had begun to become jealous of the gifts of others, and proud of the gifts they had. It had become a show off competition in the church of corinth. and so Paul in the later part of his letter starts to address these spiritual gifts and we end up in chapter 13.

The importance of Love

1 Corinthians 13:1–3 “If I speak human or angelic tongues but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing. And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.”

Tongues without Love

Paul starts this chapter listing out some spiritual gifts. The first is speaking human or angelic tongues

Speaking foreign languages was a coveted skill. It was a sign of intelligence to the people at corinth. It was also a spiritual gift

spiritual gifts are certain skills given by the Holy Spirit to those in whom He dwells. Tongues, had shown itself in many different ways. Today we tend to think of this gift as speaking random words, and while there is some evidence that that was part of it, the majority of the use of this gift is similar to the story at Pentecost, where the disciples began speaking in languages they didn’t previously know. This gift then, is when people do just that, start speaking in a language they never knew before.

Angelic tongues, would either be a unknown heavenly language, (more of what we think of today) or meaning perfect language. Angels were typically viewed above man, more perfect, and so Paul could be meaning if you have perfect language.

Regardless, this was a pretty cool gift, and yet paul says without love, its a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. Speaking in tongues without love was simply this (beat the cymbal). This illustration would have resonated heavily with the corinthians because where they lived was a center for the cults for Dionysus and Cybele, greek gods, and a lot of their worship included banging cymbals and gongs.

Prophesy, Knowledge and faith without Love

We have to remember, the early church did not have the whole new testament as we know it now, and so then certain people were given gifts to see mysteries of the gospel.

1 Corinthians 13:2 “If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith so that I can move mountains but do not have love, I am nothing.”

Prophesy was a gift that predicted the future, though usually very vaguely. We see it throughout the book of Acts, in one instance a man prophesies to paul that if he returns to jerusalem he will be detained, and thats what happened. And so prophesy was the gift to give future insight over someone.

Knowledge was the gift of secret knowledge, or understanding the mysteries of God and His revelation of Jesus in the Old Testament. This was a gift of the Holy Spirit, because they didnt have the whole NT to understand the mysteries of the gospel.

Faith, is simply faith, and here we see Paul say that if you had that gift of prophecy, you could tell the future over people, if you had ALL knowledge and understood ALL mysteries, AND if you had enough faith to move a mountain like Jesus said…

you could have all those things, but without love he says I am nothing. Nothing. Not even a little something.

Self Sacrifice without Love

even further we see verse 3. 1 Corinthians 13:3 “And if I give away all my possessions, and if I give over my body in order to boast but do not have love, I gain nothing.”

Paul says that even if we were to give away everything we had little by little. A common practice of the day for charity is rich people would go to the gate of their house and give little bits of money to a lot of people. But what Paul hints at here is that a lot of those people were giving so they could be thought of well, not out of love.

Then he says if you sacrifice your body and in a lot of translations it says in order to be burned. Burning at the stake, while not yet, would become one of the main ways for Christians to be killed. Emperor Nero famously used human Christian torches to light his garden, the Inquisition would burn “heretics” at the stake. And Paul says even if you do that wihtout love, its pointless. You see, martyrs had become kinda famous. Some started and would later start to believe that being a martyr was an instant way into heaven, (Islam believes this). But Paul nips that and says even if you give away all your possessions, or even give up your life but its done without love, its done for self fulfilling purposes, I gain nothing.

So Paul has just given us all these things, that are all can be very good things, and can even seem like some of the greatest forms of love, but says every single one of them, without love, is nothing. It’s pointless.

Paul’s ministry, this Churches ministry, even your own life could see fame, success, lots of attention, could get praised and applauded, could be admired, but without love, its all nothing more than noise. (bang cymbal)

So, with that in mind, what even is love?

What is Love

1 Corinthians 13:4–7 “Love is patient, love is kind. Love does not envy, is not boastful, is not arrogant, is not rude, is not self-seeking, is not irritable, and does not keep a record of wrongs. Love finds no joy in unrighteousness but rejoices in the truth. It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

Love and the darkness in us

Love stops the darkness inside of us.

Love, paul says, is patient. Meaning love is slow to anger. Love doesn’t get annoyed quickly, love waits. True love is patient. If your boyfriend tells you he loves you, yet gets mad at you quickly, or is extremely irritable, according to Paul, thats not love.

Love is kind. Love is not severe. Love is not hateful, but rather, true love is kind.

Love does not envy. Love is satisfied with what it has, and happy at the success of others. The church of Corinth had major issues with envying the success of others in the church, and envying the gifts God gave to others. Love doesn’t do that. We tend to envy those in similar fields to us, we envy a better soccer player, or a better student or muscian, but love doesn’t. Love is just as happy with the success of others as it is the success of itself. Love doesn’t harm others so it can be puffed up.

Love does not boast. Love doesn’t see itself over others. Love says to lift others up, not yourself like boasting.

Love is not arrogant. Love is not prideful. Love destroys the expression of pride (boasting), and the heart behind it (arrogance). Someone who truly loves isn’t filled with pride about it.

Love isn’t rude, it doesn’t act mean towards others.

Love is not self seeking. It does not mainly, or exclusively seek its own happiness, but rather equally the happiness of itself and others. True love seeks to glorify God. We gotta stop the talk that love seeks the happiness of others at the expense of itself, because that is not necessarily true, love does seek its own happiness, BUT not at the expense of others.

Love is not irritable. Love is not easily angered and annoyed.

“Only the love of God, keeping us in a deep experience of his complete acceptance of us as we are, can enable us to face up to our self-centerdness, to renounce it, and to look for light to shine in our inner darkness. In the love of God there is no place for asserting our rights, despising other’s gifts, envying our brothers and sisters, or treating them insensitively.”

True love, transforms the darkness inside of us.

Love and the darkness in others

Love also destroys the darkness we see in others. If we truly love someone, instead of seeing their quirks and mistakes, we see their strengths and potential.

Paul says love does not keep a record of wrongs. Meaning true love forgives AND forgets. Love doesn’t assume the worst when wronged, but rather tries to see the best in someone.

I think of this in my own life, when someone I love wrongs me, I’m usually quick to see the reason and forgive, but when someone random does, i don’t. And that’s not true love in my life. Jesus tells us even the world loves their friends, but as followers of Him we are to show this same love to our enemies.

We think well of those we love, and its hard to have enemies when you truly have love.

Love finds no joy in unrighteousness. In other words, love finds no joy when even an enemy is wronged. Its so easy for us to be happy when someone we don’t like falls, but true love is not happy, but is grieved. Its so easy for us to be upset when our enemies or just someone gets something good, especially if its something we wanted, but true love rejoices in righteousness, it rejoices in truth.

Love rejoices when any come to the truth, sometimes we can get upset that someone who hurt us can be saved from the punishment they deserve. We maybe get upset if they come to the truth of Christ, but Paul says that’ s not love in us. Love would rejoice.

Love and the darkness of the world

Love also destroys our view of darkness in the world.

Love bears all things. Love can endure all things, any bad situation, love can win. Love can bear harm, it doesn’t seek revenge.

Love believes all things. Love doesn’t assume everyone is lying all the time, or that everyone is out to get them. Love takes people at their word unless they have good reason not to. Love assumes what people say to be true.

Love doesn’t assume the beggar with a sign that says he needs help feeding his family is actually jst someone who wants drug money. Love believes all things

Love hopes all things

Love doesn’t hope bad situations come out to be true, love hopes for the best. Love hopes a fallen person might come back to Christ. Love hopes that people will turn their life around or that people will do the best. Love holds onto hope until all hope is lost.

Love endures all things.

love endures all persecution. Love does not fight back. Love doesn’t complain.

Application

This is love. Now, you may be thinking how on earth could I ever do this. I can’t love like that. And I’m here tonight to tell you, you’re right. Love is not natural humans. We think we know what love is, but when put against this list we clearly don’t. And the ONLY way, we could ever hope to achieve this love, is through Christ.

You see, if you notice, when reading this list there’s one person who comes to mind. His name is Jesus. Jesus checks all of these boxes. Because, as we are gonna talk more about next week, God IS love. And the only way we can ever hope to achieve this level of love in our lives, is to sit back, and let Christ transform us

To stop trying to earn his love, and instead breathe in His love, and breathe out His love. We do this by spending time with Him in prayer, fasting away from things that distract us, digging into His word, spending time with Him, and letting Him chisel us to make us love more and more like Him.

So I want you to evaluate yourself. Think of your own life. Think of the gifts God has given you. Are using them with love? Are you using them for love or for yourself? Will you be a noisy cymbal, or will you walk with purpose and confidence and love. Will you live a pointless life built on the shaky foundation of yourself, or will you live a life built on the love of God.