Love that Abides
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· 1 viewThe transforming love Christ gives his people endures forever and makes us self-sacrificial in this life.
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Introduction
Introduction
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.
This year my wife, Kim, and I celebrated 30 years of marriage. When we said “I do” back in 1992, we had no idea of the roller coaster ride that was ahead of us. We just knew that we were madly in love with each other. We also made this agreement early in our marriage. We were not going to celebrate Valentine’s Day. In our youth we were cynical about the commercialization of Valentine’s Day and the cultural pressure to spend money on chocolates and flowers and cards and other gifts. We refused to have the expression of our love reduced to a single day.
We held the line for several years, but after the third of our four children came along we gave in. Here’s how it happened. The college students at our church decided to bless the parents of young children by babysitting all the children of the church so that the parents could have a Valentine’s date night. What parent of young children is going to turn down that opportunity? It became an annual event!
My children are now grown. No need for babysitting. But here’s the deal, once you start celebrating V Day, there’s no turning back! Once you do it one time, it’s over. You have now established an unbreakable tradition. Sometimes it’s just a card and a kiss. Sometimes it’s jewelry. Sometimes it’s chocolate. Sometimes, it’s a date. But it’s always something! Our celebration of Valentines Day is an abiding one! It has in some respects become a symbol of our abiding love for each other.
You see, there are all kinds of ways in our relationships that we can forget about and neglect the primacy and priority of love. This is particularly true in the body of Christ. We know that Jesus said the greatest commandment is “you shall love the Lord your God will all your heart, mind, and strength. And you shall love your neighbor as yourself.” He said, on this rest all the law and the prophets. We know Jesus said that the church’s witness to the world is our love, “by this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.” We may have even heard the apostle Paul say in Romans 13:8 “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law.” Let me ask you this question family. When those who have not come to faith in Christ look at the church, do they gaze in amazement because our life together displays an abiding, self-sacrificing, attractive love? Is Jesus attractive to those outside of the church because those who claim to know him demonstrate a supernatural love for one another? If not, could it be that we too often neglect the primacy and priority of love?
I want to focus on three things from this familiar passage 1 Corinthians 13. Transforming Love. Connecting Love Relates. Enduring Love.
Transforming Love
Transforming Love
Love transforms. Let’s situate ourselves in the lifeworld of the 1st century church in Corinth. After being destroyed by the Romans in 146 BC, Corinth was rebuilt under Julius Caesar in 44 BC as a modern, planned city. It served as the capital city of the province of Achaia. As a center of government and trade, Corinth was characterized by the power that the Roman presence represented and the wealth brought in by the commerce. You could describe Corinth with four P’s, powerful, prosperous, pluralistic, and promiscuous. Because it was a crossroads for trade, it was also a crossroads for ideas and religions. Not only that, but over time the phrase, “to live like a Corinthian,” came to mean to live a life of immorality.
Paul shows up in Corinth around 49 or 50 AD, while on his second missionary journey. We find out in Acts 18:11 that he stayed there, working in his tent-making trade and teaching the word of God for a year-and-a-half. After leaving Corinth, Paul went to Ephesus, where he wrote this letter sometime between 52-55 AD. What’s more, 1 Corinthians isn’t the first letter he wrote to them after he left. He refers to a previous letter in 5:9-10 when he says,
9 I wrote to you in my letter not to associate with sexually immoral people— 10 not at all meaning the sexually immoral of this world, or the greedy and swindlers, or idolaters, since then you would need to go out of the world.
I bring all this background up for two reasons. To give you a sense of what life was like for people trying to live as Christians in that city. And, to point out that what we find Paul saying in this "love chapter” is intimately connected to who they are called to be in that city as they bear witness to Jesus Christ.
1 Paul, called by the will of God to be an apostle of Christ Jesus, and our brother Sosthenes, 2 To the church of God that is in Corinth, to those sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints together with all those who in every place call upon the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, both their Lord and ours: 3 Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.
They are sanctified, set apart by God through faith in Christ. Declared holy and called to be saints/holy ones together with every believer in every place. And in the first three verses of chapter 13 is they are exhorted by Paul to grasp the reality that the love they have been brought into is one that transforms them from self-centered idolaters to self-sacrificial lovers of God and neighbor. Look at the three negative statements in vv. 1-3. If don’t have love, I am a noisy gong and clanging symbol, v. 1. If I don’t have love, I am nothing, v. 2. If I don’t have love, I gain nothing, v3.
The Corinthians’ problem is that they were so wrapped up in the gifts that the Spirit gives, they ignored the Giver of the gifts, evidenced by the fact that they lived like those gifts were their own personal possession for their own personal benefit. He told them in chapter 12:4-6,
4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.
Then he says at the end of chapter 12,
31 But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.
At the beginning of chapter 14 he comes back around to desiring spiritual gifts,
1 Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.
So the issue is not with the gifts themselves or with their desiring spiritual gifts. The issue is that every aspect of their lives is supposed to demonstrate the transforming power of Christ and his gospel. They have been brought into God’s abiding love through faith in Christ. That love is to flow through them to their brothers and sisters.
So speaking in tongues, human or angelic, absent of love, having the gift of prophecy absent of love, giving away my goods or sacrificing my body apart from love is the equivalent of idolatry. Without love I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. Without love I am nothing. Without love I gain nothing. This describes the impact of idolatry.
When the prophet Elijah confronted the 450 prophets of Baal in 1 Kings 18, and from morning to midday they cried out to Baal, louder and louder that he would bring fire. The writer says in v. 29, “No one answered. No one paid attention.” All their noise amounted to nothing.
In Jeremiah 2, the Lord says to his people in v. 5
5 Thus says the Lord: “What wrong did your fathers find in me that they went far from me, and went after worthlessness, and became worthless?
You went after nothing and became nothing. Then, later in that same chapter, Jeremiah says in v. 17, “you’ve forsaken the LORD.” What do you gain going to Egypt to drink the waters of the Nile? What do you gain by going to Assyria to drink the waters of the Euphrates? The answer is “nothing!”
Listen, the love of God in Christ works to transform us from self-centered idolaters to loving servants of the living God. God’s immense, deep love pursued hard after us to bring us into his family, transforming us. And it is a love that will not let us go. Paul is giving them this corrective word because he knows that the end of the story for God’s people is an abiding love that flows from God to his people, and through his people to the world.
Connecting Love
Connecting Love
And this transforming love is a connecting love that works itself out in diverse and difficult relationships with others. Look at vv. 4-6 again with me. Paul describes and defines love by how it acts. What it does and does not do. He brackets it with two positives fills the middle with five negatives.
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.
Love is a reality that’s difficult to capture in words. It is a term of deep endearment. It carries with it a sense of affection and care. I tell my wife everyday, “I love you.” I tell my children everyday, “I love you.” And when I say it, I mean it. And when I say it, there is an internal feeling of being drawn to that person. But these verses helps us to move love out of the abstract and into the concrete. Love does. Love acts. “Love is patient and kind…it doesn’t envy or boast...is not arrogant or rude…. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful…it doesn’t rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth...love bears all things, endures all things, hopes all things.”
This makes no sense apart from being connected to other people! I said that God’s transforming love is a connecting love that works itself out in diverse and difficult relationships. I want to let you know that I’m describing the church. And we don’t have to go far to see that’s what Paul is referring to as well. In chapter 12 he says to them in v. 7,
7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
Your gifts are not for yourselves alone, they are for the benefit of others. Then he says about the body, the church, in vv. 12-14,
12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For in one Spirit we were all baptized into one body—Jews or Greeks, slaves or free—and all were made to drink of one Spirit. 14 For the body does not consist of one member but of many.
What is this body to whom he’s writing? It is a diverse group of people, Jews and Greeks, slave and free. It’s ethnically and culturally diverse. It’s socio-economically diverse. We have enough difficultly living out the description of love we find in 1 Corinthians 13:4-6 with the people we share common culture and social status. How much does the difficulty amp up when you bring all of these differences together.
I need to tell you this. The expectation as we read the NT is that the local expression of God’s church is going to be diverse. The expectation is that people will come into fellowship with Christ and one another from as many backgrounds and diverse contexts that you find in a given community.
We hear the same thing in Col.3.11-14
11 Here there is not Greek and Jew, circumcised and uncircumcised, barbarian, Scythian, slave, free; but Christ is all, and in all. 12 Put on then, as God’s chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, 13 bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. 14 And above all these put on love, which binds everything together in perfect harmony.
Paul says to the diverse church in Ephesus,
1 Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. 2 And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.
I’m a Presbyterian. And what that means, in part, is that confessionally I look to the Westminster Confession of Faith as a faithful representation of the system of doctrine taught in Scripture. And chapter 26 of the Confession is “Of the Communion of Saints.” Our fellowship and obligation to one another as believers in Christ.
The Westminster Confession of Faith Chapter XXVI—Of the Communion of Saints
All saints, that are united to Jesus Christ their Head, by His Spirit, and by faith, have fellowship with Him in His grace, sufferings, death, resurrection, and glory: (1 John 1:3, Eph. 3:16–19, John 1:16, Eph. 2:5–6, Phil. 3:10, Rom. 6:5–6, 2 Tim. 2:12) and, being united to one another in love, they have communion in each other’s gifts and graces, (Eph. 4:15–16, 1 Cor. 12:7, 1 Cor. 3:21–23, Col. 2:19) and are obliged to the performance of such duties, public and private, as do conduce to their mutual good, both in the inward and outward man. (1 Thess. 5:11,14, Rom. 1:11–12,14, 1 John 3:16–18, Gal. 6:10)
2. Saints by profession are bound to maintain an holy fellowship and communion in the worship of God, and in performing such other spiritual services as tend to their mutual edification; (Heb. 10:24–25, Acts 2:42, 46, Isa. 2:3, 1 Cor. 11:20) as also in relieving each other in outward things, according to their several abilities and necessities. Which communion, as God offereth opportunity, is to be extended unto all those who, in every place, call upon the name of the Lord Jesus. (Acts 2:44–45, 1 John 3:17, 2 Cor. 8–9, Acts 11:29–30)
George S. Hendry - this love is one “not based on mutual attraction…but a love that overcomes division and reconciles contraries and brings into communion those who have nothing in common save the fact that Christ gave himself for them.”
In other words, the connecting love that we find here in 1 Corinthians 13 and the rest of the NT is a supernatural love. It’s a love that comes from above to us and works through us. It has to be that because we will all fail to perform at this love. How will this kind of love abide? Where do we get the resources, the strength, the vision to persevere in this love?
Enduring Love
Enduring Love
The answer to that question about enduring, abiding love is here in the last section, vv. 8-13.
8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.
Paul begins to wrap this love chapter up with a simple statement. Love never ends. That word for “ends” has the senses of “falling.” He’s saying that this supernatural love never falls to pieces. It will never collapse. Love is the greatest of these among faith, hope, and love because everything else has an expiration date! Prophecies will pass away. Tongues will cease. Knowledge will pass away. These things have an expiration date because there is a day coming for God’s people when we will see him face to face. There is a day coming when all of the things that make us doubt the Lord, when all of the things that make us doubt our sisters and brothers in Christ, when all of the things that tempt us to move away from one another when it gets hard - all of those things will be done away with. And all we will see is the radiant glory of God before our face. And, what it more, we will will see that radiance reflected in one another. What will remain and come into its fullest expression is love.
Love abides because God is love.
10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.
16 So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.
Love abides because it was there at the beginning of creation and will be there in the new heavens and the new earth. When God created the world he didn’t do it for utilitarian purposes. He didn’t do it because he was lacking in any relational love or worship. He has always been full and complete in his love as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. He created the world as an overflow of his love. That’s why this love will never collapse.
We endure in love as we hold this reality close by. The love described in 1 Corinthians 13 is really the resumé of Jesus, the Son of God who had immeasurable, supernatural love for us. He demonstrated his great love to people who struggle to love. Jesus Christ lived the life of perfect love on our behalf, died as our substitute to cancel out our failures to love, and he rose from the dead to empower us to live the life of love.
Can you imagine that there is a day coming when faith will no longer be necessary. We’ve already heard this morning that faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the convictions of things not seen. There is a day coming when the things we hope for have become reality and things we don’t see have come into view because we will see him face to face. The writer to the Hebrews says in 6:11 that he desired that they have the full assurance of hope all the way to the end. He said in v. 18, that we who have fled to God for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this hope as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul. A hope that enters into the inner place, behind the curtain where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf. There’s a day coming when hope will no longer be necessary because we will be with him face to face. We will at that time have come into the full expression and experience of the love of God for us in Christ!
This is the love that transforms. This is the love that connects. This is the love that endures.