1. Corinthians 13:1-13.

1. Corinthians 13:1-13.  What is love? Haddaway.

Paul said at the end of last week, that he would show the Corinthians a better way, that the use of the gifts they had been given, - what is it that Paul this will say. Well, some of you know 1 Cor. 13, and know Paul will talk about love, that love is the better way, - well, I think Paul will say it is the only way, to build up the body for the common good. Gifts can be used without love, and care for others, so Paul will point to the better way. The way God loved the world, the way Jesus lived and died, the way Jesus is interceding for us, as we wait for his coming.

1-3 Paul takes a few gifts as examples, - that if he speaks in different toughs, but does not have love, - he will just be an annoying noise. If he had prophetic gift to reveal all mysteries, all knowledge, all faith, that can move even mountains – it does not matter – I am nothing. (For the gifts were not given gifts sake but to build up the body in love). Even if he gives away everything (very generous) and also his body to be burned, - there is nothing gained if it is not done in love.

Okay Paul what does Love look like? Is it a feeling or and action?  I will not to a lot of Greek – but the love here is not between a husband and a wife (eros) – it is agape – Love that is not sexual, a love God has for the world. A love that Paul is asking us to have for one another. And that is only possible in the Holy Spirt, and still, we will get it wrong.  Well I don’t feel any love for the people in our fellowship, the Corinthians might say, or some of us. But this might be one of the mistakes of our culture, that love has been made in t a feeling, an fleeting one at best, but the love Paul, Jesus and God talk about real love is not a feeling.

Love is an action not an accident. Not something we fall into, or out of. (That is mere feelings of being loved, or feelings of love, or lust, sexual attraction that is not love). As we clearly see in the passage Paul addresses how the people in the Corinth should treat one another – and this has nothing to do with sexual relations or even a vague feeling – this is about actions. And it is all bound up in who God is and God’s nature.  

We see that in God in creation and plan of salvation.  

God sowed patients (slow to anger abounding in steadfast love), towards you, me and people – God showed kindness, God rejoices in the truth, and is truth, God does bare all, and his love does not end.

Paul also explains and corrects the Corinthians and us, that Love does not boast, envy or is arrogant, - or insists on is own way, it not irritable or resentful. – Oh, - ouch, - then when I get irritable, and or resent full, it is an alarm that something is not right, and I am not controlled by the Holy Spirt, and the Love of Christ that was showed to me. It is Gods goodness that calls me/you to repent, from my own way to, Jesus’ way.

Love dose not rejoice at wrongdoing – the bigger picture legitimates the wrong evil I do. No, it does not.

In contrast love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. – We see that in Jesus, he did bear all things; sin death, - Jesus trusted God and believed, and hoped, and endured it all. Life death, resurrection and that Jesus is on his way back. Paul pointing the Corinthians to Jesus as the true example of what love looks like in action, the one that endured it all, - the one that rejoiced with the truth, well the one that is the truth. God and Jesus will not end, they are eternal – the gifts that the Holy Spirt gave to us, they will pass away, - because they will not be needed when Jesus comes back, that we will see face to face, and be fully know, as God fully have known us. The gifts are given to build the body for the common good, as we wait for Jesus, when Jesus comes all will be made new and we will see Jesus and will not need the gifts, but faith, hope and love abide – and the one that we will always need is love, the love we had experienced in Jesus – by the Holy Spirt and that God made available for us to see as he loved the world and gave Jesus, that we might see who God is.