Love and the Power Part 1: It Starts with God's Love

Intro

We always start with God if we want to understand a biblical concept better. Who is God? What has He done? Then we can start thinking about who we are and what we do.

1 Corinthians 13 ESV

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. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not 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. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 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. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

1 Corinthians 12:31 ESV

But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.

1 Corinthians 14:1 ESV

Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.

By saying he would show us a better way, Paul isn't contradicting himself by saying there is a way that is better than the pursuit of the gifts. Rather, Paul is going to show us a better way to pursue the gifts. That is the way he describes in 1Corinthians 13 and it is the way of pursuing the gifts in love. So....

For the next couple of weeks we are going to be looking at 1 Corinthians 13. In order for us to know how we are to apply spiritual gifts properly in our church, we must first understand God's love for us.

We can miss a lot and still have a church that still functions, but if we miss love we won't be much good to anyone.

God's love for humanity has been revealed in the world from ancient times. Remember that he made us very uniquely. All of the other creations he made are dealt with fairly generally, including the animal kingdom (we are not animals by the way, no matter what scientists may say about that). Then, God very specifically designed and gave life to people. He made us in His image and breathed into us a special life in Him. His special glory is on us whereas there is certainly glory in other aspects of creation, but they don't have God's image like we do.

If humanity has a unique purpose, glory, and place in God's heart... then so do you and I.

God has gone to great lengths to redeem us after we fell into sin. He has greatly inconvenienced Himself in order that we may have everything we need in Him.

John 3:16 ESV

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.

When we talk of the love of God, that's the sort of love we mean. It's the sort of love that lays aside concern for self in order than your beloved might thrive.

And that's the love which God has shown us, and that is to be the basis for our pursuit of spiritual gifts.

Tension

We are often tempted to begin with self rather than with God. God’s aim to to orient us entirely on him, that we will be full of his love and that his love will flow from us and into others.

Truth

I. For Christians, everything begins with God's love

"We love because he loved us first." 1 John 4:19 NET

God's plan for us is that we would be in constant pursuit of spiritual gifts, especially prophecy, and that our pursuit won't be motivated by what we can get out of it personally but rather our love for others and how we can bless them.

The word "love" in 1 Corinthians 13 is the Greek work agape, which is the word for love most often used in the NT. It describes the love of God here, the sort of perfect love which puts self aside in order for another to thrive.

We enter into the faith because of His love for us. We grow in the faith because of His love for us. We serve one another because of His love for us. We lovingly minister to our world because of His love for us.

"Jesus' saving act upon the cross, the confirmation of His kingship, the axial point of salvation history, is filled with royal imagery, but all of it is turned on its head." -Mark Sayers, Strange Days (35)

This way is demonstrated best in the life of Christ and the way he approaches us as His church.

We expect a king who comes demanding his power be recognized, who flexes his authority by commanding that we do his bidding without demonstrating his commands for us. But that's not the kind of king Jesus is.

Sure, Jesus has plenty of commands and decrees for us but He is a King who enters into our domain and lives them out faithfully for us, with us, and in our place.

"Do nothing from selfishness or empty conceit, but with humility consider one another as more important than yourselves; do not merely look out for your own personal interests, but also for the interests of others. Have this attitude in yourselves which was also in Christ Jesus, who, as He already existed in the form of God, did not consider equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied Himself by taking the form of a bond-servant and being born in the likeness of men. And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself by becoming obedient to the point of death: death on a cross." Philippians 2:3‭-‬8 NASB2020

II. God reveals for us what His love is like

"But God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5:8 NASB2020

"Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered, it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; it keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things."

1 Corinthians 13:4‭-‬7 NASB2020

1. Patient

-exhibiting internal and external control in difficult circumstance, long-suffering

2. Merciful (or kind)

-Having compassion and extending forgiveness to one whom it is within your power to do harm.

3. Not envious

-Envy or jealousy in this context is the desire to advance at another's disadvantage. Whereas many in our world have no issue with this sort of mindset, God is one who disadvantages himself for our advancement.

4. Not braggadocios

-Far from needing others to acknowledge how great he is, God has no problem with working behind the curtains and away from the spotlight. Considering that He is the glorious one, it's amazing how little he often regards his glory.

5. Not arrogant

-The idea of thinking excessively highly of oneself

6. Not disgraceful (or rude)

-He always acts appropriately towards others. He is not an abuser.

7. Not Self-seeking (insistent on own way)

-"People who are self-seeking always want their own way. They are selfish, self-centered, wanting what they think is best for them. This is the opposite of love. Love (agape) looks out for others, seeks their best interests, willingly gives up its own for the sake of another. A self-seeking person may use his or her gifts but not with a serving attitude or a desire to build the kingdom. Instead, the gifts are only used if they can somehow benefit the self-seeking person. This is not God’s way. Instead, because of love, the believers use their gifts to benefit others first, without “self” or selfish desires getting in the way." -LAC

8. Not easily angered

Numbers 14:18 ESV

‘The Lord is slow to anger and abounding in steadfast love, forgiving iniquity and transgression, but he will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, to the third and the fourth generation.’

9. Not resentful

10. Rejoices in truth rather than evil

11. Confident

12. Optimistic

-Thinking the best rather than the worst of the beloved

13. Resilient

-Not easily giving up

III. Spiritual gifts are an outpouring and a clear demonstration of God's love

Jesus washes his disciples’ feet. Spiritual gifts are another way in which he washes our feet. Through the gifts, God is bowing near to us and serving us because he loves us.

"Now which one of you fathers will his son ask for a fish, and instead of a fish, he will give him a snake? Or he will even ask for an egg, and his father will give him a scorpion? So if you, despite being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?” Luke 11:11‭-‬13 NASB2020

1 Corinthians 12:12–13 ESV

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. 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.

"And He said to them, “The kings of the Gentiles domineer over them; and those who have authority over them are called ‘Benefactors.’ But it is not this way for you; rather, the one who is the greatest among you must become like the youngest, and the leader like the servant. For who is greater, the one who reclines at the table or the one who serves? Is it not the one who reclines at the table? But I am among you as the one who serves." Luke 22:25‭-‬27 NASB2020

"But Jesus called them to Himself and said, 'You know that the rulers of the Gentiles domineer over them, and those in high position exercise authority over them. It is not this way among you, but whoever wants to become prominent among you shall be your servant, and whoever desires to be first among you shall be your slave; just as the Son of Man did not come to be served, but to serve, and to give His life as a ransom for many.'" Matthew 20:25‭-‬28 NASB2020

Spiritual gifts are God coming to us and serving us by giving us His power that we might be elevated to His place. How else could we be like Jesus and do what Jesus does in the world?

John 14:15–18 ESV

“If you love me, you will keep my commandments. And I will ask the Father, and he will give you another Helper, to be with you forever, even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him. You know him, for he dwells with you and will be in you. “I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you.

John 14:25–27 ESV

“These things I have spoken to you while I am still with you. But the Helper, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, he will teach you all things and bring to your remembrance all that I have said to you. Peace I leave with you; my peace I give to you. Not as the world gives do I give to you. Let not your hearts be troubled, neither let them be afraid.

Ephesians 1:13–14 ESV

In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory.

Romans 8:9 ESV

You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if in fact the Spirit of God dwells in you. Anyone who does not have the Spirit of Christ does not belong to him.

John 7:37–39 ESV

On the last day of the feast, the great day, Jesus stood up and cried out, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ” Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.

Application