Love Supersedes Gifts (1 Cor 13)

Announcements

Don’t forget that we have Bible Study & Prayer this Wednesday at 7pm. We’re in Psalm 26 and we’d love to have you join us as we study God’s Word and pray together.

Please be aware of the following dates:

June 18th, 2022—we’re going to try and canvas the Chester Hill neighborhood again. Every single time that we’ve tried, we’ve had some difficulty with weather. The first time was far too cold to go out, this past time, it rained. So, hopefully, we’ll be able to actually get into the neighborhood and meet people this time around. See Natalie for more details.

June 26th, 2022—we’ll have our first of two church cookouts after the Sunday AM service. The service itself will be here in the auditorium, but the cookout will be across the street right after church. We’ll have canopies for everyone to sit under, but you’ll need to bring lawn chairs with you. It’s a good opportunity to invite friends and family to visit the church and get to know us in a more casual environment.

July 3rd, 2022—Quarterly Business Meeting As of today, we don’t have anything to vote on during that meeting, it’s really just an update.

Let me remind you to continuing worshiping the LORD through your giving. To help you with your giving, we have three ways for you to do so: (1) in-person giving can be done through the offering box at the front of the room—checks should be written to Grace & Peace, if you’d like a receipt for your cash gifts, please place it in an envelope with your name on it. Debit, Credit, and ACH transfers can be done either by (2) texting 84321 with your $[amount] and following the text prompts or by (3) visiting us online at www.gapb.church and selecting Giving in the menu bar. Everything you give goes to the building up of our local church and the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Prayer of Repentance and Adoration

Call to Worship (Ps 51:13-19)

Our Call to Worship this morning is Psalm 51:13-19. This is the end of David’s psalm of repentance after he sinned with Bathsheba. He has asked God to have mercy on him and to cleanse him. He’s asked God to purge him and wash him. In this morning’s section, he then turns to his desire to praise God after God forgives him and cleanses him. Please stand and read with me Psalm 51:13-19—I’ll read the odd-numbered verses; please join me in reading the even-numbered verses.

Psalm 51:13–19 ESV

13 Then I will teach transgressors your ways, and sinners will return to you. 14 Deliver me from bloodguiltiness, O God, O God of my salvation, and my tongue will sing aloud of your righteousness. 15 O Lord, open my lips, and my mouth will declare your praise. 16 For you will not delight in sacrifice, or I would give it; you will not be pleased with a burnt offering. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise. 18 Do good to Zion in your good pleasure; build up the walls of Jerusalem; 19 then will you delight in right sacrifices, in burnt offerings and whole burnt offerings; then bulls will be offered on your altar.

Congregational Singing

How Deep the Father’s Love for Us (80)

My Savior’s Love (105)

Praise Him! Praise Him! (94)

Scripture Reading (1 Pet 4:1-11)

Our Scripture Reading this morning is 1 Peter 4:1-11. We actually read this passage during our first week in our new series on spiritual gifts. However, I think it’s important enough of a passage for us to read it again. In 1 Peter 4, Peter exhorts the believers in the diaspora (those separated because of persecution) to live as God wills them. They are to reject sin and live in the spirit. He then calls them to love one another, show hospitality, and use their spiritual gifts. Deane can you read 1 Peter 4:1-11 for us?

1 Peter 4:1–11 ESV

1 Since therefore Christ suffered in the flesh, arm yourselves with the same way of thinking, for whoever has suffered in the flesh has ceased from sin, 2 so as to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God. 3 For the time that is past suffices for doing what the Gentiles want to do, living in sensuality, passions, drunkenness, orgies, drinking parties, and lawless idolatry. 4 With respect to this they are surprised when you do not join them in the same flood of debauchery, and they malign you; 5 but they will give account to him who is ready to judge the living and the dead. 6 For this is why the gospel was preached even to those who are dead, that though judged in the flesh the way people are, they might live in the spirit the way God does. 7 The end of all things is at hand; therefore be self-controlled and sober-minded for the sake of your prayers. 8 Above all, keep loving one another earnestly, since love covers a multitude of sins. 9 Show hospitality to one another without grumbling. 10 As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God’s varied grace: 11 whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies—in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen.

Sermon (1 Cor 13)

Introduction

If you have your Bible, please turn it to 1 Corinthians 13.

We’ve been working over the past few weeks through an eight-week series concerning spiritual gifts—what they are, where they’re from, and what they do. And so far, we’ve been working through 1 Corinthians 12, which speaks of spiritual gifts as being from the Spirit given to genuine believers for the building up of the local church. We focused on the truth that these gifts are given for this very specific purpose during our first week in this series and then during the second week, we focused on how different every believer is—both in personality and in giftedness. We’re all different and that is a good thing; we all have different personalities and that’s a good thing; we all have different spiritual gifts, and that is a good thing. We should be different and just along as we aren’t in sin, we should celebrate those differences.

This morning’s message is going to focus on again, on spiritual gifts because Paul continues in that line of thinking, but he almost takes a step back before looking more intently at spiritual gifts in ch. 14. He’s explained how all these gifts are given by the Holy Spirit and he’s explained how necessary all these different spiritual gifts are and then he takes a step back to make a very specific point in ch. 13. This point has to do with the fact that even though these gifts are important and are necessary, your spiritual gifts have to be utilized in a specific way. And even if you don’t have a clue what your spiritual gifts are, there’s something that’s a little more important and it’s the need of love, which is what Paul focuses on through ch. 13—love.

Read with me all of 1 Corinthians 13.

1 Corinthians 13 ESV

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

As we study this passage, we’re going to break it into three parts: (1) The Superiority of Love (1-3), (2) A Description of Love (4-7), and (3) The Permanence of Love (8-13). You’ll notice as we work through these sections that the first and last sections directly compares and contrasts love to spiritual gifts, whereas the second section focuses more on what love actually is. What 1 Corinthians 13 does is it teaches us what genuine love for one another is and then it teaches us that genuine love for one another is more important than spiritual giftedness in that, even if we were the most spiritually gifted person, if we didn’t love each other, we would be completely missing the point. Spiritual gifts are important and we ought to utilize them according to Paul in 1 Corinthians 12, but we can’t focus so much on spiritual gifts that we neglect the basic command to love one another.

Prayer for Illumination

The Superiority of Love (1-3)

Before we can dig into our current text, we have to remind ourselves of one verse in ch. 12. 1 Corinthians 12:31 says, “But earnestly desire the greater gifts. And yet, I am going to show you a far better way.”

This verse in ch. 12, provides the transition between chs. 12 and 13, which shows us that there’s an integral link between the two ideas at hand.

Every believer has a spiritual gift given by God through the Holy Spirit to use within the local body for mutual upbuilding.

Within the local body, we all have different gifts and we all have different personalities and there is strength within our differences.

But regardless of the differences in gifts and regardless of the fact that there are gifts, what v. 31 says is that there’s something a little more important that needs to be considered—regardless of what your gifts are and how you’re using them, your love for one another is more important.

Your love for one another supersedes all spiritual gifts and the reasoning for this is simple:

If you use your spiritual gifts, you are to use them in love.

If you don’t use your spiritual gifts, you are to still love those around you.

Even if you don’t even know your spiritual gifts, you still need to love those around you.

The still better way that Paul is speaking of is the necessity to love one another regardless of how you serve within the body of Jesus Christ; you are to love one another regardless of your personality; you need to love one another regardless of how you feel.

It’s this context that Paul then writes something that might seem hyperbolic, but really isn’t. In vv. 1-3 of ch. 13 he says, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

Paul goes through some of the gifts that he just mentioned and he happens to pick the ones that people tend to want to have the most. He mentions speaking in tongues, prophetic powers, faith, and even giving and he calls out these gifts out by name.

Before saying that you can have these gifts and you can have an overabundance of these gifts, to the extent that you could talk to angels, understand all the mysteries, have all knowledge, have faith to move mountains, and give until you’ve genuinely sacrificed, but if you don’t have love, it’s all worthless.

He calls someone who can speak in tongues, but doesn’t have love a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

He calls someone who can prophesy, understand mysteries, and has knowledge and faith nothing without love.

He states that someone who sacrifices all, even to the extent of giving his life, is nothing if he doesn’t have love.

Again, it sounds like hyperbole, but the reality is that he isn’t being hyperbolic at all. You can be the most gifted, most talented, most well-spoken, eloquent, faithful, and educated person in the world, but without love, you have nothing.

And it’s really no wonder that Paul can say this because Jesus himself says that the greatest commands are to love.

When the Pharisees attempt to trick Him, they pose the question, “which is the great commandment in the Law? and Jesus responds with Matthew 22:37-40 “37 And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ 38 This is the great and foremost commandment. 39 The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’ 40 Upon these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets.””

If loving God and loving others are the two greatest commands, which they are according to Jesus, then it’s really no wonder that Paul would then state that without love, you’re a noisy gong or clanging cymbal (v. 1); and without love, you are nothing (v. 2); and without love, you gain nothing (v. 3).

There is a superiority of love, which is what Paul emphasizes in 1 Corinthians 13 and that love ought to supersede everything else.

It is love that ought to motivate you to serve and it is your love that ought to compel you to worship and it is your love that ought to cause you to utilize your spiritual gifts within the local body of believers known as the church.

Because without that love for one another and without that love for God, you have nothing.

It’s worth noting that this is the αγαπη sort of love that depicts God’s love for us and the love that He expects us to have for one another and for Him.

While many of the descriptions that He’s about to give also apply to the other forms of love life φιλεω or ερος, the focus here is on the type of love that God commands us to have for one another and for Him.

Of course, the question then becomes, what exactly does this sort of love look like? If it is our love that ought to motivate, compel, and cause us to serve, worship, and use our spiritual gifts, what does genuine love look like? Is it like the love stories that Disney shows or is it like our culture’s idea of love that has resulted in the hook-up mindset of the world? Or is it something different entirely? Paul describes genuine love in vv. 4-7, let’s re-read those verses.

A Description of Love (4-7)

1 Corinthians 13:4–7 ESV

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Paul gives us a list of descriptions through vv. 4-7 concerning what genuine love looks like. To help us understand these descriptions, I’m going to list them for you and then give examples of what he means:

Paul says, “Love is patient and kind.” (v. 4)—It sounds like an obvious statement when you think of love in general, but the reality is that it is something that ought to taught and retaught. Genuine love is always patient and kind, which means anything that isn’t patient and kind isn’t genuine love. This means that when someone does something that offends you or hurts you, your response of αγαπη love isn’t to automatically jump on them and attack them. It would be to take a breath, maybe probe with some questions and be slow to anger.

“Love does not envy or boast” (v. 4)—This might not be as obvious of a statement, but the idea of envying is that of developing a resentment towards someone due to what they have or what they’ve done. It’s tied closely with the idea of jealousy—you’re jealous of what someone has so you envy them. The idea of boasting is to be prideful of what you have and to sort of rub it into other people’s faces. This means that genuine αγαπη love doesn’t involve pridefully boasting in what you have or sinfully envying what you don’t have. It’s learning to be content with what you have even when the person next to you has more; and then it’s learning to treat them lovingly even when they have more and even when they rub their abundance in your face.

“[Love] is not arrogant or rude.” (vv. 4-5)—Arrogance and boasting almost go hand and hand so it’s really no surprise that Paul writes of arrogance and rudeness right after writing about boasting. If someone speaks to you and they’re arrogant and rude in the way that they respond to you, what’s the likelihood that you think they love you? It isn’t very high. It’s because arrogance and rudeness aren’t typically the hallmarks of someone who genuinely loves you. This means that when you respond to people, if you genuinely love them, your response should stray away from being arrogant and rude. It’s learning to treat people without arrogance and rudeness because you love them.

“[Love] does not insist on its own way” (v. 5)—This is probably one of the harder aspects of love for most people because we are all sinful people. In our sin, we typically think about ourselves more than we think about others. Thus, when we have disagreements with other people, our tendency is to be selfish and thus, insist that everyone else conform to us and bend over backwards for us. And if we think about people in our own lives, I’m sure we can think of people who act this way towards us and if we’re honest about it, we’ll admit that it bugs us and irritates us. Now how frequently do we insist on our own way with others? Genuine love includes learning how to not insist people conform to you in all aspects of life. Genuine love includes a certain amount of compromise with other people—and note, that this is not compromise when it comes to theological truth; this is compromise when it comes to opinions, when it comes to how we do things, or when it comes to how we respond to one another on a daily basis.

“[Love] does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.” (v. 6)—If insisting on your own way is hard for most people, not rejoicing in wrongdoing is probably the hardest aspect of love for most people. How do I know? When you really don’t like someone—maybe it’s someone that sort of rubs you the wrong way; maybe it’s someone that irritates you every time you seem them; maybe it’s to the point that you can’t even stand to hear them breathe—when you think of them, how often do you hope for someone wrong to occur in their life? When you really don’t like someone, are you hoping for them to come into great sums of money or are you hoping for them to experience difficulty?

Now, when that very same person does something wrong—whether it’s sin or maybe they just made a mistake at work and they get found out—are you celebrating? When they do something right—are you disappointed?

That’s the definition for rejoicing at wrongdoing.

In reality, Paul says that we shouldn’t rejoice when they do wrong—we should weep for them and with them. When they do something right, we should rejoice—even when we don’t really like them.

The last description given in vv. 4-7 is that “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” (v. 7)

In many ways this sort of encapsulates everything that Paul has already discussed concerning love. Because love is patient and kind, and it doesn’t envy or boast; because love isn’t arrogant or rude; it doesn’t insist on its own way, nor does it rejoice at wrongdoing, you can sort of sum all this up simply by saying “love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, [and] endures all things.”

In a sense, it balances the negative commands that love doesn’t do all these previous statements, with some positive action commands. If you genuinely love, you will bear all things, believe, hope, and endure things.

Genuine love will endure even the worst of the worst, genuine love believes the best even when things seem wrong, and genuine love hopes for the best even when things seem incorrect.

But don’t mistake genuinely loving someone as being naive. There’s a difference between hoping for the best and believing the best and believing that the sky is orange just because someone says so.

Genuine love definitely hopes for the best, but when the fruit shows that someone shouldn’t be trusted, it is wisdom to not trust that person; even when you genuinely love them.

With this list that describes love, there’s really two ways that Paul would’ve wanted the Corinthians to look at it. First, he would’ve expected them to consider their own love for God and for other people in light of what genuine love is. Second, he would’ve expected them to consider how they utilized their spiritual gifts in light of what genuine love is. (We’ll talk more about this when we discuss application.) In the last few verses Paul really drives home his point. Why is a stressing love so much? Because at the end of time, when Jesus returns and we’re in paradise, the spiritual gifts aren’t as important as whether we genuinely loved God and loved others. All of the gifts will eventually fade, but love supersedes the gifts. Read with me vss. 8-12.

The Permanence of Love (8-13)

1 Corinthians 13:8–12 ESV

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

Paul stresses the need of love regardless of what your spiritual gifts are and regardless of your personality because in the end, whether or not you genuinely loved God and genuinely loved others is more important than whether you used your spiritual gifts or not.

Don’t misunderstand me and don’t misunderstand Paul, the spiritual gifts are still important and you should still seek to use your spiritual gifts, but the reality is, if you use your gifts but don’t love God and love those around you, there’s more at stake than your spiritual gifts.

First off, if you don’t love God, you have to seriously take a moment and question your own salvation. It’s rather difficult for someone who has repented and believed in God through Jesus to state that they don’t love God.

Second, if you love God but you find yourself in a situation in which you aren’t the biggest fan of the people around you, you really have to remind yourself of Jesus’ response to the Pharisees in Matthew 22. The two greatest commands are to love God and love others. In fact, 1 John 4:20 states “20 If someone says, “I love God,” and yet he hates his brother or sister, he is a liar; for the one who does not love his brother and sister whom he has seen, cannot love God, whom he has not seen.”

The reason why love is focused so much here isn’t because the spiritual gifts aren’t important, it’s just that if you use your spiritual gifts but don’t actually love, you’ve missed the point.

Paul stresses that genuine love never actually ends, whereas the spiritual gifts all have an end date, “As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.”

Why? V. 9-10, “For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.”

The spiritual gifts only exist as a means for the Holy Spirit to utilize genuine believers in Jesus Christ for the sanctification of the church—or in other words, we need the spiritual gifts right now, because we have yet to be perfected.

And as v. 9 says, these spiritual gifts only provide a partial fulfillment to the idea that all believers will be perfected when Jesus returns.

But as v. 10 says, “when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.” There will be no more need for the spiritual gifts because the purpose of the spiritual gifts will have been completed.

Eventually the spiritual gifts will cease, but the command to love God and love others will never cease. Again, because spiritual gifts only exist as a means for the Holy Spirit to encourage and mature believers. And the prime example of this is found in vv. 11-12, “When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.”

Just like a child, who speaks like a child, thinks like a child, and reasons like a child; so are we when we first come to the faith.

It is through other believers utilizing their spiritual gifts that we mature and we grow. We eventually put away that childish talk, thinking, and reasoning as we mature in our faith.

But at no part in this lifetime will we ever completely mature to the level that we’re perfect in our faith and in our thinking.

We’ll put away the childish ways that epitomizes our thinking and our actions as young Christians and we begin to think and act as mature Christians.

But all of us on this side of eternity only see in the mirror dimly. We only know partly and it isn’t until we are perfected that we’ll be complete and fully matured.

Paul closes this chapter by saying “Now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Or in other words, faith, hope, and love are all virtues that are necessary, but much like the superiority of love over spiritual gifts, there is a superiority of love in comparison to faith and hope.

This might sound odd because you might be familiar with Hebrews 11:6, which makes it clear that faith is absolutely necessary for salvation: “6 And without faith it is impossible to please Him, for the one who comes to God must believe that He exists, and that He proves to be One who rewards those who seek Him.”

And you might be familiar with Romans 8:24, which implies the necessity of hope for salvation as well“24 For in hope we have been saved, but hope that is seen is not hope; for who hopes for what he already sees?”

But Paul can say what he says in 1 Corinthians 13 because love compels or motivates both faith and hope. We have faith because we love God; and we have hope because we love Jesus.

Now before we dig into our application, let me make it abundantly clear that Paul isn’t saying that we should reject spiritual gifts, in fact, the overarching premise of the argument at hand is the need for spiritual gifts within the local church. What Paul is teaching in 1 Corinthians 13 as he teaches the Corinthians about spiritual gifts is that though the gifts are important, loving God and loving others supersedes the spiritual gifts. So, if you know your spiritual gifts and you use your spiritual gifts, but you don’t love people and you don’t love God, you’ve missed the point. And if you don’t know your spiritual gifts, but you still try to serve, but you don’t love people and you don’t love God, you’ve missed the point. The point is to know you spiritual gifts, use your spiritual gifts, and while you serve you are to love God and love others. The gifts will eventually fade away, but your love for God and love for others won’t, which then brings us to our application. And I think the best way for us to get our application this morning is by posing two questions: (1) Do you love God and others with genuine love? and (2) Are you using your spiritual gifts in love?

Application

Do you love God and others with genuine love? (1-7)—In the first two sections of the text, we see Paul bluntly stating that regardless of what spiritual gifts we have, if we don’t love, then we’re just a noisy gong and we are nothing, and we have nothing. To make sure that the Corinthians understand what he means by love, he then describes genuine αγαπη love. It’s patient and kind, it does not envy or boast, it isn’t arrogant or rude, it does not insist on its own way. It is not irritable or resentful, it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things, and love never ends. It sets a rather high bar and it speaks of the supremacy of love in all matters. Do you love God and others with genuine love?

Let’s look at your love for God: Now of course, hopefully, you realize that genuine love for God has been a necessity since the beginning of time. When God tells Adam and Eve not to eat the fruit of the tree of knowledge, it wasn’t because he didn’t want them to enjoy whatever that fruit was. It was that he wanted them to love him over their love of knowledge.

That theme of loving God more than anything and anyone else continues throughout the Old Testament. In fact, it’s reflected in the Ten Commandments, particularly in commandments 1-2. Exodus 20:2-4 “2 “I am the Lord your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. 3 “You shall have no other gods before Me. 4 “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath, or in the water under the earth.”

What does it mean to have no other gods before Yahweh and no idols? It means that you love God above an beyond any other so-called god and any other object or person that might be elevated higher than what it should be.

This idea continues into the New Testament when Jesus answers the Pharisees by stating that the two greatest commandments is to love God and love others.

Now, here’s the thing, the description for love in 1 Corinthians 13 does apply to the love that we are to have towards God, but I think you can see that most of the attributes for love here primarily focus on our love for others.

Because when we speak of our love for God or when we speak of God in general, very rarely do we have an issue of being impatient and unkind. And very rarely do we have a problem with envy, boastfulness, arrogance or rudeness when we speak to God. Of course, we might have an issue with insisting on our own way or being irritable and resentful towards God, but most of us recognize that many of these ideas aren’t present in our relationship with God because we understand that God is God and we are not. Thus, we don’t have a right or reason to think, act, or prayer in unloving ways towards God on a regular basis.

I think, we have to look at one more passage to actually understand what it means to love God and it’s John 14:15. Jesus says this to His disciples, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments.”

We might struggle with some of the issues in 1 Corinthians 13 when it comes to our love for God, but if you really want to gauge whether you love God, you just have to ask yourself if you’re obeying God or not. Jesus Himself says that genuine love for Him results in obedience.

So, are you obeying God? Or are you more concerned with your own desires and your own wants? Are you obeying Jesus? Or are you more focused on your own life and what makes you happy and what makes you comfortable? If you want more specific ideas:

When speaking about obedience to Jesus Christ, probably the first question that we need to ask ourselves is whether or not we’re sinning. The Bible repeatedly tells us to reject sin, repent, and follow Jesus. If you’re actively pursuing sin in your life, you aren’t obeying Jesus.

Jesus commands us all to go and make disciples of every nation—teaching them all that He taught us, baptizing Him in the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. The Bible tells us to be disciple-making disciples, which means if you aren’t making disciples, you aren’t obeying Jesus.

In the context of 1 Corinthians 13, the matter of obedience is utilizing our spiritual gifts or at the very least, serving even if we don’t know our spiritual gifts. It is a matter of obedience and it shows whether you love Jesus or not. If God through the Holy Spirit gives, empowers, and uses people through their spiritual gifts within the local church, which we believe He does; then doesn’t it make sense that using your spiritual gifts would be an issue of obedience—you’re either going to use them in obedience to God or you’re going to not use them and disobey God, which reveals whether you love Him or not.

We can go further and explore what all Scripture teaches us about loving one another, but the reality is that most of us heard those three ideas that can prove or gauge whether we love Jesus and we felt some level of conviction. Because all of us struggle with sin, some of us give into that struggle almost every single time. All of us struggle to make disciples, some of us don’t even bother. We’re to use our spiritual gifts in the local church, but many of us see church as a once-a-week thing or twice-a-week thing, so even when the church asks for help, we don’t even try.

But if Jesus says “if you love me, keep my commands” don’t you think that this is a pretty accurate way to determine whether you love Him?

Let’s look at your love for others: And this is really where 1 Corinthians 13 is vitally helpful for us because it gives us a sort of sieve to look at the way that we act towards others and how we think and respond towards others. We’re told that we are to love others throughout the Bible, but 1 Corinthians 13 gives us a gauge for whether we do love others.

It’s so important that it’s probably worth us memorizing at least a little bit of it. Because we can seriously just ask ourselves every time we interact with someone, was I being loving in my interaction with this person? And we can be very specific with this question:

Was I patient? Was I kind?

Did I envy him or was I boastful?

Was I arrogant? Was I rude?

Did I insist on my own way?

Was I irritable? Was I resentful?

Did I secretly rejoice when he explained issues in his life? When he told me something good in his life, did I get discouraged?

If we’re being truthful, I think we’d all realize that we actually struggle more with being loving towards others than we think. But the reality is that Paul teaches us that love supersedes all else in 1 Corinthians 13, which means that if we’re unloving towards others, we’re actively sinning; and we need to repent and seek Jesus.

Our first application for this morning might sound very basic, but when we consider that we regularly struggle to obey God and we regularly act unlovingly towards others, I think we can see just how vital this application is. 1 Corinthians 13:1-7 teaches us to love God and love others. Do you love God and do you love others? Use 1 Corinthians 13 to answer this question.

The second question I posed is rooted in vv. 8-13, Are you using your spiritual gifts in love? (8-13)—remember that the context of 1 Corinthians 13 is that of spiritual gifts. It isn’t a stand-alone statement about love and it’s not some sort of poem that Paul sort of wedged into the passage. The point that he’s driving at is that spiritual gifts are important, but if you utilize your spiritual gifts and don’t actually love, you have nothing.

Thus, the primary point that he’s driving at is that you need to use your spiritual gifts in love. In fact, without love, your spiritual gifts aren’t worthwhile. And I think we all know people who are exceptionally spiritually gifted people, but lack in love.

We’ve all seen pastors who are exceptional at teaching and preaching, but when it comes to actually shepherding their people, they’re manipulative and unloving—it’s their way or the highway.

We see people who are exceptional with serving and helping, but they serve and help because it makes them feel good about themselves, not necessarily because they love others.

And this really extends to all the spiritual gifts. You can be spiritual gifted, but unless you’re using those gifts in love, you’ve missed the point entirely.

Now, you might hear this and you might ask yourself “how then do I use my spiritual gifts in love?”

You use 1 Corinthians 13 in light of how you use your spiritual gifts. As you teach, as you preach, as you help and serve, as you exhort, as you give, as you lead, as you participate in utilizing your spiritual gifts, you can ask yourself:

Was I being patient? Was I being kind?

Did I envy him or was I boastful?

Was I arrogant? Was I rude?

Did I insist on my own way?

Was I irritable? Was I resentful?

Really, you should ask yourself if your use of spiritual gifts fits the purpose of the spiritual gifts from 1 Corinthians 12:7 “7 But to each one is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” Do you want to know if you’re acting in love while using your spiritual gifts?

Ask yourself, am I using my gift pridefully? Am I using it and puffing myself up? Do I use my gifts to get people to look at me or to get them to praise me?

Or am I using my gifts for the common good of the local church? Do I use my gifts humbly? Do I use my gifts to get people to look at Jesus and to praise Him?

Do you love God and love people enough to use your spiritual gifts for the common good of the local church?

Put simply, what 1 Corinthians 13 teaches us is that spiritual gifts are important but loving God and loving others are more important. Thus, we need to (1) love God as seen through our obedience of Him, (2) love others as seen through our conformity to 1 Corinthians 13, and (3) we need to use our spiritual gifts because we love God and love others.

Do you love God and love other people enough to use your spiritual gifts for the common good of the local church?

Pastoral Prayer

Congregational Singing

Across the Lands (198)