True Love / Amor Verdadero
Notes
Transcript
Introduction
Introduction
We come to a passage of the Bible that is read in many weddings around the world:
1 Corinthians 13.
This chapter has been called by many “the love chapter” in the Bible.
1 Corinthians was the biblical text used for the brief message given at Prince Harry and Meghan Markle’s wedding in May 2018.
Unfortunately, it is passages like these which tend to be misunderstood.
Many people have a very superficial understanding of the biblical text.
Our desire is to understand God’s intent when he inspired the Apostle Paul to write these words 2,000 years ago.
The overall theme of this chapter is love. Today, we will consider:
Everything is worthless without love.
True love is manifested in our mind, wills, and our attitude.
True love lasts forever.
I. Everything is worthless without love.
I. Everything is worthless without love.
Paul has been speaking to the Corinthian Christians about spiritual gifts.
The Corinthians were a very proud congregation because they were blessed with many spiritual gifts: miracles, prophecy, administration, faith, etc.
However, these same Christians had become conceited and though highly of themselves.
They looked down upon the poorer Christians, they felt superior to other believers that did not have the more spectacular gifts.
For this reason Paul writes to the Corinthians:
If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Si yo hablara lenguas humanas y angélicas, pero no tengo amor, he llegado a ser como metal que resuena o címbalo que retiñe.
Y si tuviera el don de profecía, y entendiera todos los misterios y todo conocimiento, y si tuviera toda la fe como para trasladar montañas, pero no tengo amor, nada soy.
Y si diera todos mis bienes para dar de comer a los pobres, y si entregara mi cuerpo para ser quemado, pero no tengo amor, de nada me aprovecha.
Paul uses hyperbole (exaggeration to prove a point).
If he knew all human or angelic languages...
If he had the gift of prophecy and received revelation regarding all the mysteries (knew all the unknown)…if he had all knowledge...
If he had miraculous faith such that he could move mountains...
If he gave away all his possessions so give to those in need...
Or…if he gave his own body to be burned for a just cause...
…all these would be admirable actions.
Anyone who would be capable of doing these things would surely be admired just for having done them.
However, Paul sees each of these notable actions…and says:
If I do any of these things but am lacking love then I am just noise, clanging cymbals, I am empty.
If I do any of these wonderful actions for which I would be praised, but have no love…then I am nothing and gain nothing - in the sight of God - for in the sight of men I would surely be praised.
Notice that each of these examples refer to some kind of action.
…and at the same time, these actions can be accomplished or performed without love.
It is possible to do these actions without love.
It is possible to go through the motions without a heartfelt attitude.
Paul is concerned with the Corinthian Christians who seem to have many gifts, who seem to prophecy, who seem to be busy with all sorts of activity but are lacking in true Christian love.
Many of us have experienced such actions or have performed these types of actions where there is no love.
A father who lavishes gifts upon his children but becomes violently angry at any simple mistake.
A wife who has her house in order but regrets being a wife and mother.
A supervisor / manager who pretends to take care of his employee when the district manager makes a site visit, but we know that he does not value his employees whatsoever.
God’s exhortation to his church is that you can do all sorts of actions that seem good / positive, but without love - then there is no reward or benefit to what you are doing. Ultimately, actions must be governed by love toward others.
II. True love is manifested in our mind, wills, and our attitude.
II. True love is manifested in our mind, wills, and our attitude.
Most people think that love is:
An emotion.
Others think that love is having feelings for another person.
For this reason, when people no longer feel these feelings for one another they look for a way out of that relationship (e.g., marriage).
In order to comprehend true Christian love, Paul describes what love is and is not:
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
El amor es paciente, es bondadoso. El amor no tiene envidia; el amor no es jactancioso, no es arrogante.
No se porta indecorosamente; no busca lo suyo, no se irrita, no toma en cuenta el mal recibido.
El amor no se regocija de la injusticia, sino que se alegra con la verdad.
Todo lo sufre, todo lo cree, todo lo espera, todo lo soporta.
Notice that in each of these verses Paul describes love in terms of a state of mind, our attitude, our will.
Christian love:
Is patient
It is kind
It does not envy
It does not boast
It does not hurt people
It is not self-centered
It does not allow one to easily become angry
It does not keep a record of wrongs that have been done against us
Love forgives
Love believes at all times
Love waits
Love endures
Notice how these characteristics do not refer to emotions or feelings.
Christian love is not determined by feelings but rather by our motivations and attitude.
Christian love must accompany our actions.
These types of attitudes, this state of mind, this way of thinking assures us that our actions are genuine instead of meaningless empty actions.
I would like to comment regarding verse 7.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Todo lo sufre, todo lo cree, todo lo espera, todo lo soporta.
Many people have used this verse to convince people to stay in a toxic relationship.
There are many women who are verbally and physically abused by their husbands.
Sometimes their pastors or parents convince these women to stay with these violent men saying that God calls them to be submissive, to trust, to hope, to persevere, to endure.
These people should be ashamed of their counsel. They are putting the life of that women and her children in danger.
I am pretty confident that this chapter is actually evidence against their counsel.
If that man truly loved his wife and children, he would be kind, he would be a protector, he would not be a self-centered monster.
…these verses do not mean that those that suffer at the hands of another should endure that suffering till the end and that one day God will reward them.
These verses actually mean that as believers we are willing to forgive those who have hurt us, to liberate ourselves from living a life of anger and resentment.
We are willing to continue believing in God, hoping in God, and enduring to the end.
If you find yourself in an abusive situation, I would invite you to cry out to God, to seek help, and ask that God would deliver us from those who seek to hurt and destroy us.
It is not humanly possible to manifest each of these qualities at all times in all our actions.
Just imagine having to be good, kind, patient, etc…while trusting in our abilities.
It is utterly impossible.
For this reason, we understand that love is no mere emotion / feeling.
We must seek God who is himself love, so that as we know God, as we are filled with his Spirit, we are able to demonstrate true Christian sacrificial love to one another.
III. True love lasts forever.
III. True love lasts forever.
Paul goes back to thinking about spiritual gifts and notes how they will one day cease:
Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part,
El amor nunca deja de ser. Pero si hay dones de profecía, se acabarán; si hay lenguas, cesarán; si hay conocimiento, se acabará.
Porque en parte conocemos, y en parte profetizamos;
Prophecy and tongues will cease.
Knowledge will also one day cease.
These gifts will cease when the perfect has come:
but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.
pero cuando venga lo perfecto, lo incompleto se acabará.
…but love never fails. Love will not cease. Love will not come to an end.
Paul then speaks to a person’s development from a child to an adult:
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.
Cuando yo era niño, hablaba como niño, pensaba como niño, razonaba como niño; pero cuando llegué a ser hombre, dejé las cosas de niño.
Paul shows that children have childlike actions and a childlike state of mind.
However, as we mature, we leave those childlike actions and attitudes.
…Paul seems to be encouraging us who are feeling guilt for we have failed to demonstrate true Christian love.
We have failed not because we not Christians.
We have failed because we have yet to mature.
Notice how Christian maturity is not measured in biblical head knowledge but whether we are truly loving one another.
We come to a realization that we have much to grow in Christ and should cry out to God, to be transformed, to be changed, to mature in Christ so that we may truly love as God intends for us to love one another.
Conclusion
Conclusion
Paul closes this chapter with perhaps some of the most notable words in the Bible:
And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Y ahora permanecen la fe, la esperanza, el amor: estos tres; pero el mayor de ellos es el amor.
Christians will continue to believe and hope in God.
Faith and hope will remain until our last dying breath.
…however, notice that Paul says that the greatest of these three virtues is love.
Why would love be the greatest virtue?
I believe that love is the greatest because it is the only virtue, of these three, that is intimately related to God.
God has no faith - he is God after all. We have faith in God but God does not exercise faith.
God has no hope - he is God and has no need to hope in another for he is all in all. We who are his children hope in him. God is our everlasting hope.
…but God surely has love.
Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.
Amados, amémonos unos a otros, porque el amor es de Dios, y todo el que ama es nacido de Dios y conoce a Dios.
El que no ama no conoce a Dios, porque Dios es amor.
En esto se manifestó el amor de Dios en nosotros: en que Dios ha enviado a Su Hijo unigénito al mundo para que vivamos por medio de Él.
The greatest of these virtues is love because it is the virtue that God himself manifests day by day.
God loves his people.
God showed his love for us by sending his son to die in our place.
God not only loves, not only teaches us how to love, but demonstrates his love upon us day by day.
…let us then love one another just as we have been loved by God.