What Is Love? (1 Corinthians 13:1-8a)

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Good morning, Cityview Community Church. Turn in your Bibles with me to 1 Corinthians, chapter 13, verses one to eight. That’s page number 932, on the Pew Bibles. And if you don’t own a Bible, please take that home with you. That is our gift to you. Some of you might be familiar with Christianity today’s podcast called The Rise and Fall of marzil. And if you aren’t and you’re wondering, what’s marzil? Well, in this context, marzil was a booming Christian mega church. When I say booming, I mean 15,000 in person attendees and over 260 1000 online viewers weekly. That’s 60 times the size of this church. The church’s charismatic founder and multi million dollar platform eventually collapsed due to struggles with power, conflict, fame, and in its final days, it was rocked by allegations of abuse, fraud, intimidation and sexism. This is one of many stories that suggests that people are so often caught up with things that are attractive on the outside that they disregard the things that matter the most, things like character, intentionality, love. So let’s ask the question, Who Killed Mars Hill? We did. We are the kind of people that disregard the things that matter the most. No, I’m not saying our church is on a downward trajectory, and that Pastor Brandon is all charisma. He’s not. But what I am saying is, when we look at ourselves, we are more concerned with being right, taking pride in ourselves as we compare ourselves to everybody else. We want people to see us, acknowledge us, affirm us. In other words, we’d rather be loved than be loving. And see, this is not a new phenomenon that came about in the past couple of decades. This unholy desire for affirmation existed in the Corinthian church. So follow along, as I read first Corinthians 13, one to eight, if I speak in tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging symbol. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith that can move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing if I give away 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. 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 anger to keeps nor record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoice with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. Love never fails. So you’ve probably heard this passage quite a few times, and very likely in the context of a wedding where the pastor looks at the bride and groom and says, Love is patient, love is kind. And everybody in the audience starts getting chills. Wow, how cute and adorable this love thing is. Well, that’s not remotely the case here. See, that’s not how the Corinthians took this. Paul isn’t making a feel good statement. It was a straight up rebuke to the church of Corinth. And since we are picking up in the middle of the text of the book, let me give you some context. Paul, in this portion, is making clear to the Corinthians that they have a misunderstood view of why God has given them spiritual gifts. See, they looked at these gifts as ways to seem more significant. They thought, in a place like Corinth, where everything was about making it big, and it is true about Corinth, the best way to make it big, spiritually speaking, was to boast in these gifts. In other words, they’d rather be loved than be loving, while Paul has other plans for them, and I’d like to help you see these plans by showing you three movements in our text, our love, God’s love and God’s love in us, starting with the first one, our love, our love is self centered and sinful. When Paul says, If I speak in tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging symbol, he points to the pagan culture of Corinth that worshiped at the Temple of Artemis, a temple known for its aggressive use of these percussion instruments, like gongs and symbols and what he. Really is pressing on is that the speech of this church sounds a lot like pagan worship noises in comparison to the Church of God. What Paul is saying is that lovelessness in speech looks like paganism. I mean, what really are these Corinthians doing in these pagan temples? They are worshiping a god. So said God will bless them. That’s not loving They’re loving themselves by using God to do what they want, to get what they want. It’s all about self, meaningless noise in meaningless worship. Think about what that looks like today. You could always just stand up during worship and sing with your gifted voice and think to yourself, Wow, I sound great. Or I can’t believe I hit that note. Let me remind you, without love, that is simply just meaningless noise and meaningless worship. Or consider the way we talk. Proverbs, 12 verse 25 says, anxiety weighs down the heart, but a kind word cheers it up. Isn’t it true that we’re so eager to say something and very, very, very slow to listen. I have the magic potion in my mouth, and unless I spit it out, somebody will die. Is the way we act, Paul is letting the Corinthians know that their speech is of no value if it’s not conveyed in love, if it’s not shared to build up, if it truly cannot cheer up the heart. So here are some things we probably should ask ourselves, do we often think that we’re the only ones with answers? How quick are we to critique in comparison to encourage someone personal confession is that I really struggle to appreciate the things that people do for me, and I’m very quick to critique them. But it is in those moments I realize that there is something missing in my heart that needs to be filled. It’s so easy for us to ignore all the times we’ve used our words to build ourselves up and pridefully take joy in being right this time we acknowledge that we’ve offended the God of love. And Paul doesn’t stop there. He then says, If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I faith that can move mountains, but do not have love. I am nothing. Something that tends to happen in Christian circles, and I speak with the experience of being, of going to Bible school, is that people can talk about loving and completely lose track of it when it comes to action. The amount of times I’ve seen students get aggressive over theological topics, the idea of love just floats out of the equation when you need to be loving. My ideals, my theology, my church, is more significant. And of course, my knowledge is what gives me life. So what you say to me means nothing to me. The problem is we don’t believe what chapter 12 ends by saying, in First Corinthians 12, verse 31 it says, Yet I will show you the most excellent way. And no, it doesn’t talk about gifts or knowledge or faith. Talks about love. Look with me just a few paragraphs prior to First Corinthians, 12 verses four to seven, Paul says, there are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but in all of them, and in everyone, it is the same God at work. Now to each one, the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. Lovelessness is to look at something without the common good in mind. Lovelessness is also looking at something and recognizing that maybe your version of common good is not really the common good we may think in this portion, this message is about love of God versus love of people, when really this message is love for God and love for people versus love for self. Again, we’d rather be loved than be loving. The Corinthians were using these gifts to look good for self glory, and by doing so, failing to love God or others, they were failing to seek out what was the common good, and don’t look down on them, because we do the same thing when we boast about our jobs, our friends, our possessions, our acts of kindness, even our ministries. All these are good things that we cling to for self, glory and without love mean nothing.
Look at the following verse. It says, 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. If you look at your footnotes in your Bible, this portion that says, Give over my body. To hardship is seen in other manuscripts as deliver up my body to be burned. This takes the idea of suffering and extends it to death, to martyrdom. And you might be picturing martyrs now, and you’re thinking, wow, how can somebody who’s willing to give their life not be loving? This might seem like an aggressive example, but consider suicide bombers. Are they being selfish? Of course, they are. They think that they’re going to be rewarded in the next life, and obviously they’re not being loving when they take away all our loved ones. And that’s more extreme than what Paul is saying here, but you get the idea it’s self sacrifice that really is just self love. There are celebrities that are billionaire philanthropists who are willing to give away all of their money so that they can look good, for their reputation, for their pride. And maybe you are here today thinking to yourself, I tithe and donate my money and serve at the church, but are you doing that out of love or because you want people to see you, praise, you, celebrate, you, maybe even just for yourself, so that you can feel good about yourself, all of which means nothing without love. And if you’re being honest with yourself, it doesn’t really feel good either. Tim Keller shows a frightening story about a minister who was caught an affair, and this minister was willing to talk to Keller about his situation, of how he led a big congregation amidst the affair. He says, on Friday and Saturday, while I sat down to write down my sermon, I would think to myself, How can I do this? I’m living in sin. How can I lead this congregation? But then you reconcile with him and himself, and he’ll say, you know, I’m going to call her in on Monday and I’m going to let her know that it’s over. We’re calling in quits. And that left him just enough room to press on through Sunday. And when Sunday came around, that’s when his gifts would kick in. And he was a gifted preacher, regardless of his dead prayer life and his persistent life and sin, he would see people crying and people coming up to him and saying, that message changed my life. And then one when Monday came around, he would say, God’s still with me. See that is mistaking gifts, talents and worldly success for God’s favor and grace in our lives. And this is happening all over the place. And people close to the pastor see the lack of fruit, the apathy, the grumpiness, while people not so close only see the gifts. And when the people on the inside start to call them out, the outside, people start getting defensive and protective of what needs redeeming. Why does this happen? This happens because these these gifts that they’ve seen on the outside have deeply impacted them on the inside. And this passage, Pastor, that was once a vessel for transformation by God is now their God. See, you could be serving on the worship team and thinking to yourself, what would service be without me and my wonderful talents? But you could also just be somebody in the background of the church, praying for the church and thinking to yourself, Wow, I’m doing the right thing. I have such an intimate relationship with God unlike any other. How selfish can we be, and how unloving can we be, even in the good things that we do? You and I are innately more unloving than we’d like to believe. One way or another, we find ourselves in this world of lovelessness, where we conform to this loveless pattern for the sake of our pride and have turned away from what is truly good and loving. And this lovelessness is what Christians call sin, and we’ve all been subject to it. We seek our own good, our own goals, our own gain. I don’t understand that it means nothing without love. Our love is self centered and sinful. But why love? What is Paul trying to mention with all these mentions of love? What is love, baby? Don’t hurt. Don’t hurt. Well, if that’s how you define it, then let me show you the most excellent way love is patient. Love is kind. Does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud, 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 before we even dwell on this misdirected wedding sermon. Part of this text, I’d like to propose to you that God’s love is selfless and holy. And if you notice, the whole text, love is described with 16 action verbs. 16 love here is defined not as an affection, but as action now. Just an understanding of love, but an undertaking of love. And we understand this in the context of a relationship. If a boyfriend kept telling his girlfriend, I love you, babe, but every time she came to visit him, he’s just click, click, click, click, playing his video games. Anybody on the outside could look at that and cringe. They cringe because they know that he’s being unloving when he should be buying her flowers, taking her out of coffee, doing fun things like a picnic. He’s busy thinking about himself, playing his games. We see the reason God’s love is selfless and holy is because in the life of Jesus, we see someone who turned the virtue of love into a venture of love, someone who turned the idea of love into loving initiative. In John, chapter 13, verses 34 and 35 Jesus says, A new commandment, I give you Love one another as I have loved you, so you must love one another. By this everyone will know that you are my disciples if you love one another. John 13 starts off with Jesus washing his disciples feet. He first takes off his outer clothing, ties a towel around his waist, gets down to the feet of his disciples and watches him clean. And then in verses 12 to 15, you say, we see Jesus. Say, do you understand what I’ve done for you? You call me Teacher and Lord, and rightly so, for that is what I am. Now that I your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you should also wash one another’s feet. I have set you an example that you should do as I have done. If you were to look at what Jesus did with the lens of today, we might think to ourselves that was a kind act by Jesus, but what about that was loving? What Jesus is conveying is act is not just kindness. He’s showing love to its fullest extent. And as we look at the list that Paul is giving us, Jesus’s life represents that love as action in many ways. See throughout Jesus’ life, we see Jesus selflessly encourage a hopeless Samaritan woman. We see him have compassion a crowd, feed them, even teach them. He even shows concern for prostitutes and tax collectors, the most despised people of his day. In this instance, we see Jesus helping his disciples see that they don’t need to boast or become proud of themselves and their skills, rather than humility, count themselves less significant than others. Jesus acts in kindness, but he also acts in submission. He’s their master, their rabbi, but he’s also washing their feet. Love does not boast. Love is not prideful. Love is best represented in servanthood. And I intentionally skipped a part of the story where Peter actually rejects Peter. Peter actually rejects Jesus from washing his feet. And Jesus says, No, Peter, you don’t understand what I’m doing. But Peter stays persistent and says, No, you will never wash my feet. And then Jesus says, Unless I wash you, you have no part with Me. Funniest part of Scripture, Peter does a full 180 and says, Oh, then wash my head and hands also. And then Jesus says you’ve taken a bath. Just to your feet need washing. But see, Peter is very similar to you and me. He shows our hesitancy to receive love. And even that is a pride thing, like, when was the last time you let somebody pay the restaurant bill? And even if you did pay the restaurant bill, did you get caught up saying, Oh yeah, I got next time. Don’t worry. Yeah, yeah, if you did get caught up in I got next time. Love for you has become transactional. Our pursuit of self sufficiency and self Glory has made us unlovable. The beauty of Jesus is he doesn’t get irritated with Peter and condemn him rather. He is patient. After Jesus discourse with Peter, he proceeds to talk about his death. He talks about going to be betrayed by one of his disciples and then disowned by Peter. Yes, Peter, wash my head and hands. Peter. Jesus actually tells Peter that Peter cannot follow him where he’s going. And then Peter gets adjective. He says, why can I follow you? I will lay down my life for you Jesus, knowing very well that Peter was going to disown him, says, before the rooster crows, you will disown me three times. And as you know, Peter did disown Jesus three times
the same Jesus who washed His disciples feet and made himself a servant to them. That same Jesus was deceived by one of his disciples, disowned by Peter, and then put on a cross. Does that sound self seeking to you? But that is Christ’s love. He knew what was going to. Happened. His love is not self seeking. It keeps no record of wrongs. Do you know how I know that Jesus, after he’s resurrected, presents and presents himself before the disciples, and specifically Peter, and asked him three times, do you love me?
Do you love me? Do you love me? And Peter, after feeling the pain of sin against Jesus says, Lord, you know all things. You know that I love you.
Jesus doesn’t pull out a card and say, but look at the time you disown me. Rather, he reinstates him as a shepherd to his people, and he says, Follow me. Does that sound like he’s keeping a record of wrongs? What we see here is that there was something that helped Peter back from following Jesus at first, even though he was so passionate, Christ then transformed Peter’s affections to actually follow him from a place of love. Jesus disciples failed to love him, yet he took their lovelessness and put it on a cross. Though we persistently fail to love him, he takes our lovelessness and puts it on a cross. And since we are defining love, let us ask the question again, what is love. One, John four, eight to 10 says, Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God shared his showed his love among us. He sent His one and only Son into the world that we might live through Him. This is love, not that we loved God, but he loved us and sent His Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. We might have passion and vigor like Peter and say, Lord, I will follow You wherever You go. We might think to ourselves, I am patient, I am kind, I don’t boast. Maybe you don’t understand to what extent God is calling us to love following Jesus seems easy until we realize we’re following Him to a cross. In our lovelessness, we have chosen to love ourselves over God and others. But Christ came to the earth to change that for us. He loves what is unlovely. He loves us. When we look at the life of Jesus and compare that to this text, what we can do is we can replace the word love with Jesus, and you’ll find it all to be true. Jesus is patient, Jesus is kind. Jesus does not end me and so on. But we simply cannot do that with our own names. This list is reminded that we need Jesus because we have the desire to love and be loved, and it is a good desire, because we were made as a result of God’s overflowing love. But you cannot love God without him, because God is love, and he loves that great cost to himself, God’s love is selfless and holy, but mine is not. We’re not patient or kind or honorable. So what do we do? Try harder. No, we need Jesus to do something in us. Look at verses seven and eight. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres, love never fails. See if love never fails, it’s because God is love and God never fails. So if Jesus in me, Jesus is in me, then I am like a bucket that is overflowing with love and cannot fail. So that brings us to our final point. God’s love in me, is relentless in redeeming. When we receive God’s love, we accept that in our failure to love, God’s love has redeemed us in our pursuit of sin. God’s love has redirected us in our sinfulness, in our death, His love has given us life. What you realize as you keep reading the text is that these descriptions of love are not divorced of each other. Love always protects because it doesn’t delight in evil and rejoices with the truth. It always trusts because it keeps no record of wrongs. Can you imagine how hard it would be to love someone if all you can think of, I mean, trust someone when all you can think of are the wrong things that they’ve done, it’s just not possible. Love always hopes because it is patient and kind. It always perseveres because it does not dishonor others, nor is it self seeking, nor is it easily anger, love never fails. Promised myself I would restrict myself to one Tim Keller quote, but I couldn’t help it. So here’s just one more. Tim Keller, in his talk about satisfaction, says, When your fundamental desires are met, your superficial desires will not overcome you. I. Keller is saying that we have a true need for love and love that will last in unfailing love, but our desire for God’s love, which in theory, we believe is unfailing, has been clouded by the desire to receive affirmation from this world. This plays itself out in many ways, and you too can see if your heart is in a place of unfulfilled fundamental desires. You may dress immodestly because you’re consumed by what people think of your body, or buy many clothes to seem fashionable, a very superficial attempt at filling a deep need. You may think your home needs a makeover every season, because that’s just your fix. You want a promotion at your job every year, and if you don’t get one, you want a new job. And here’s one that has home for me, desiring a different friend circle, because the depth of the relationships are just never enough. These superficial desires cannot fulfill the void in our hearts. We get restless and frustrated so easily, and as you recall that is unloving, we feel this constant urge to get the next fix a lack of patience, also unloving. We seek the downfall of others so that we can look good yet again, delighting in evil, unloving. But when we comprehend the love of Jesus, those fundamental desires are met, that void in our heart that we desire fulfillment that is met with the affirmation, acknowledgement and love of Jesus we recognize in a world that promotes Take, take, take, it all for yourself. Jesus gave His life for us. He loved us at great cost to himself. He didn’t ask us for anything. He lovingly gave it all away that we may be united in our relationship with God. See, this is the kind of love that puts us in a position where we can always protect, always trust, always hope and always persevere. It’s the kind of love that would make a man like Paul who killed Christians want to serve them with his life. Paul understood this love very deeply, and we know that because he wrote about it, but he also wrote about this more in depth to Timothy, when he talks about it in First Timothy one, chapter 14, chapter one, verses 14 to 16, we see Paul say the grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with faith and love that are in Christ Jesus, here is a trustworthy saying that deserves full acceptance. Christ, Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the worst, but for that very reason, I was shown mercy so that in me the worst of sinners, Christ, Jesus might display his immense patience as an example for those who would believe in Him and receive eternal life. Paul can proclaim of his loveless acts, because he’s no more defined by them. He’s defined by love, by the love of Christ and all fulfilling love, and we need that too. So that really brings us to the main point of the text. Here’s the big idea, because God’s love is fulfilling, we can love freely. You may have been coming to this church or been in Christian circles a long time, but today you’ve recognized how unloving you’ve been. Please don’t leave this room thinking that I’m going to be more patient, I’m going to be more kind. I’m not going to boast no receive the love of Jesus that fulfills your deepest longings for affirmation and love, and I promise you, you will become loving as a result of it. Receive is all fulfilling love so you no more cling to the superficial things of this world to fill you up and make you happy when you can get this joy, this joy unspeakable from knowing Jesus intimately you might be here today, desiring the true, unfailing love that always protects, always trusts, always hopes and always endures. I urge you to invite Jesus into your lives. Learn what it means for Jesus to be your Lord and Savior and grab hold of that love that he’s given us. Because His love is truly fulfilling and his love is life giving, we too can love freely, and may we, just like Paul, be able to proclaim the grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with faith and love that are in Christ, Jesus, and know that the blood of Jesus on the cross, which was poured out for you and me, is an act of love that fulfills our deepest longings for affirmation and intimacy. And when we receive that man, we will be able to. Love freely. We will be able to love generously. We will be able to be loving. Pray with me, amazing love. How can it be amazing love? How can it be amazing love? How can it be that, thou, my God should die for me,
Lord, as we look at the cross, as we listen to the fact that we are unloving and that we have transgressed you in so many ways, Lord, hurt our neighbors and both pridefully taken joy in what made us look good, Lord, I pray, I pray. I pray today that you forgive us, that you help us see that we’ve been unloving and that we need your love as we look at the cross, Lord, may we receive that love that gives us life. Help us surrender ourselves onto you and help us be filled with joy unspeakable. Teach us more about your mercy and your love and help us surrender because Lord, you are worth it. You are the kind of love that we need in our lives. You are that all fulfilling love have your way in us, Lord and strengthen us with that love and help us cherish every moment of this journey, knowing that we are following you in your precious, precious name, we pray amen, amen.