The Way of Love | A More Excellent Way - 1 Corinthians 13 | June 2

SCRIPTURE

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.

INTRO

You may now kiss the bride!

Haha – Hey family.

Isn’t that where our minds go? Isn’t that what we’re used to with this chapter? Isn’t that where we have heard these words most often, hundreds of times, in a wedding ceremony rather than within an actual church context?

I suppose it isn’t so strange that couples who are declaring their love for one another would gravitate toward these words as they share their marriage vows. But I fear as a result of this usage, we may have lost sight of what’s really going on – of what’s really important. We have removed these words from their context. We have made these into nice words exchanged between an adoring bride and groom and in some ways removed the power that it is contained within them.

Don’t get me wrong, these are perfectly good words to share at a wedding. Husbands and wives should love each other in this way. And I do believe if you set out with purpose to take these words to heart you will have a better marriage. But that’s not really what they’re about.

And true, they are words of love that describe how God loves, in the way that He first sets the example. In the sense that we don’t even know what true love is were it not for God initiating love into the world. In the truth of how God loves completely, He doesn’t hold anything back from any of you.

And the reason many people focus on this reality as a description of God’s incredibly patient love for sinful people like us, is because of the particular word for love chosen by Paul which I’m sure you have heard before. And if you haven’t, the word in Greek is agape.

In Greek there are a few different words for love, but agape is the word most often chosen for the way God loves because it describes a self-sacrificing love. A love that pours itself out without expecting anything in return.

Jesus doesn’t only reserve that right of love for He and the Father, but challenges us to love in the same way. One time while eating a Sabbath dinner at the house of a ruler of the Pharisees, Jesus kind of spends the whole evening verbally assaulting the guests with truth, and He even says to the host, “When you give a dinner or a banquet, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, lest they also invite you in return and you be repaid. 13 But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed, because they cannot repay you. For you will be repaid at the resurrection of the just.” (Luke 14:12-14, ESV)

Just like Paul, Jesus is confronting culture – the culture of reciprocity which says, if I do something nice for you, then you’ll feel obligated to do something nice for me. You’ll return the favor. You scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours. Dinners, even Sabbaths, were status jockeying opportunities. Jesus says don’t do that, instead show kindness to people who couldn’t possibly repay you. Love pours out without expecting anything in return.

God loves you because He promised that He would and not with the expectation that you would earn it. This is the love that calls people to God and salvation – a love they cannot return.

This story is directly followed by Jesus’ words to die to self, to lay down your life, to take up the cross yourself and give up everything you have, everything you hold dear. It is a call to die. Love is a call to die. And this is the way God has first loved us.

But it’s interesting, Paul never says to the Corinthians this is how God loves. He doesn’t say, let me describe love in the way that God shows it to you. He is communicating that to an extent, but it doesn’t seem to be the main point.

A MORE EXCELLENT WAY

What Paul does say is I will show you a more excellent way. At the end of chapter 12, which we read last week, Paul concludes his thought by writing, “31 But earnestly desire the higher gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.”

One way to interpret this is in an accusatory sense where Paul is saying you are desiring gifts you perceive to be higher and better than the next person so you can be exalted. Don’t do that, I will show you a better way to live. Your attitudes and behaviors are not how love acts or feels. None of those gifts or abilities or status symbols matter much if you’re putting yourself on display. If you look down to the center of your motivations and you’re there then you’ve got it all wrong, so pursue love first and here’s the excellent, self-sacrificing way of love.

This is arguably the climax of the letter. Paul has been building through all of his exhortations, and corrections, and teachings Paul has been building and now it is erupting and overflowing from the depths of his heart.

“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.” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3)

“They were boasting in men (3:21). They were puffed up, even in wrongdoing (5:1-2). They were unwilling to suffer long and bear all things and so were taking each other to court (6:1-8). They were insisting on their own way in eating meat that caused others to stumble (8:11-12). They were acting in “rude” or unseemly ways not wearing the customary head-coverings (11:1-16). They were insisting on their own way as they ate their own meal at the Lord’s Supper without any regard to others (11:21-22). They were jealous and envious as they compared their spiritual gifts and thought that some were needed and others were not (12:21-22).” Paul is holding the Corinthians up to the mirror of love, the standard of Jesus, and saying the way you have been acting is unacceptable.

Love doesn’t divide. Love dies.

LOVE IS PATIENT AND KIND

Love dies! To self. To Preference. To injustice.

I don’t think I’ve ever heard that at a wedding. But I’ve heard it a lot from Paul over this letter to the Corinthians. Laying aside spiritual preferences is still in view, worship is still in view, love is still the answer. Love dies.

“Love is patient and kind.”

The word is actually the same description of God in Exodus 34 where it says, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, 7 keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin.” (Exodus 34:6-7, ESV)

Love is long suffering. That’s the word patient. And I’m pretty sure the actual literal translation is “long of nose” which is of course an idiom and not a physical description. Because to have a hot nose or red nose was to be angry, and if you had a long nose then those things took much longer to be present.

Love is patient. Love is long suffering.

What it doesn’t mean is love doesn’t get quickly frustrated when your day didn’t line up the way you thought it should have. It doesn’t mean you let minor inconveniences pass by without giving them a thought. This word is not situational or circumstantial. It is directed solely at people in the same way God forgives iniquity and sin done against Him over and over again. In the same manner God loves and forgives and bears your sin time after time in patient hope that you will repent and return to Him.

Longsuffering means opening yourself up to be wronged and wronged again and wronged again. Love doesn’t say I’ve had enough. “If two people, or two thousand people, are in a relationship of love, all will be hurt. And all will need to “suffer long” and endure and bear.” Being long-suffering means dying to the desire for an untroubled life.

Not only that. Not only an openness to being hurt again and again for loves’ sake, but also when not if – when you are hurt you repay injury with acts of good.

Love dies to self, accepting hurt, and responds for the spiritual good of the offending party.

I’ve often thought this way about our culture. We don’t really have enemies – not really. Maybe some people do, but not by in large. Even then, hurt most often comes from those we love. Who do you perceive hurt from? Don’t give up on them. Don’t repay evil for evil, harm for harm. How can you work for their spiritual good? What blessing can you pray over them?

Interesting tidbit, the whole eye for an eye tooth for a tooth law was to stop blood feuds by severely limiting ever increasing acts of revenge. We go a step further and repay evil with good. We suffer alongside our fellow sinners forgiving them much because of the great love and forgiveness we have been shown.

Love dies.

LOVE DOES NOT ENVY OR BOAST; IT IS NOT PROUD OR RUDE

“Love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude.”

There are a couple overarching themes throughout this list of what love is and isn’t. We just looked at how love is enduring. A little bit further on Paul writes, “Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.” Love is not fragile but endures the sin of people even when wronged.

The other main common thread of this self-sacrificing love is that it is humble. There are so many ways in which the opposite of love is not hate or indifference/apathy as you may have been told before, but pride. The opposite of love is pride because pride is selfishness that works for the good of yourself while love is invariably others-focused.

Love doesn’t say I want what you have or I wish you didn’t have that good thing. Love doesn’t say don’t you wish you had this good thing or point back to itself. Love takes delight in the honor of others. Love glories in the spiritual good of the people around you.

“The glory-loving, self-exalting, attention-seeking, whining, pouting, self-pitying me has to die. Love does not seek its own personal, private preference without reference to what may be good for other people. Love seeks its joy and its profit in the good of others, and not in private gratification.”

“The main category of what love does not do, what we must die to, is arrogance.“

We must pray, “O Lord, reveal and destroy the pride in our lives.”

I know there are the passages in Jeremiah and elsewhere, but I was reading in Samuel the other night, and when Saul is anointed king it says this strange thing, “As Saul turned and started to leave, God gave him a new heart…” (1 Samuel 10:9)

And so I pray, God will give me a new heart. Give us a new heart. Give us a heart that is solely directed in honor toward you. Give us a new heart that loves people on purpose. A heart that dies to self and exalts others.

That’s the heart of the phrase in Roman 12 that calls us to think of others more highly than ourselves. It is not telling to think less of yourself, although maybe in some ways that is true. We think too much of ourselves. But it’s not a call to dishonor yourself – to devalue you. You have been created with such value and purpose. You have been created in the image of God. To self-deprecate is to dishonor God’s image.

This is a call to lift others up to an even higher station. Love prioritizes other people.

Love dies.

LOVE DOES NOT INSIST ON ITS OWN WAY

“Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.”

“It’s hard to not insist on our own way because it’s very hard to trust others. None of us knows the full extent of our selfishness, but we know it well enough to be on our guard against others.”

Let me say that again, “None of us knows the full extent of our selfishness, but we know it well enough to be on our guard against others.”

It is very hard to trust others, especially as we endure wrong time and time again, but even when no wrong has been done and no hurt has been perceived, it is still very hard to trust others. But trust we must – trust our hearts to one another no matter what happens, and do it time and time again.

I guess one way of putting it is that love risks. To love is to risk change, rejection, losing pieces of ourselves, abandonment, and more. Love requires the courage to risk it all for each other.

We don’t store up wrongs for the opportune time. You’re not waiting and hoping to catch the slip up of another so you can really let them have it the next time they feel wronged by you. “Oh yea, well do you know what you did Mr perfect? Not so perfect after all are we?”

What does that look like with our kids, when they do the same thing over and over again because they just can’t help it and their brains aren’t fully developed to be able to have even the slightest self control to not do the exact thing we’re telling them to stop doing while we’re telling them to stop it? Not that’s ever happened to me. I’ve heard about it though, it’s a friend of a friend kind of thing.

We don’t keep a list to hold their flaws against them. We recognize and show grace to those who are sinners just like us. “Not seeking our own way means dying to the dominance of our own preferences, dying to the need for no frustrations, dying to the desire for revenge.” We recognize and show grace to those who are sinners just like us.

Love rejoices in truth.

I heard an acquaintance of ours share this thought with regard to this passage, “Real love doesn’t celebrate sin and say at least they are being who they are. In our culture we want to believe that love means we are always accepting and always affirming and if you disagree that shows that you do not love me. That’s not love that’s patronizing indifference. Love wants better for people than sometimes we want even for ourselves.”

Many times the spiritual good we want for other people is not what they want for themselves. The most we could ever hope and want for another person is Jesus. What I want for you more than anything else is Jesus. And I know that despite the confessions that many if not all of us have made, you don’t really realize the fullness of what that means and what it will cost you. And that is still what I want for you. Some people, many people, probably most people in this world at this point and time don’t want Jesus. Because people outside the church tend to realize the cost more than people inside the church.

We show them Jesus in the way that we love. We show them a better way – a more excellent way.

LOVE IS THE REAL DEAL

Because love is the real deal.

Paul uses the imagery of a banging gong or crashing cymbal. This is something those in the Corinthian church would have immediately recognized. In the pagan temples they would attempt to awake their false gods to life by making a lot of noise. We see this with Elijah and the prophets of Baal. They cried aloud and the cut themselves and danced around banging on drums but no one answered. In the futility of their actions Elijah taunted them, “Cry aloud, for he is a god. Either he is musing, or he is relieving himself, or he is on a journey, or perhaps he is asleep and must be awakened.”

They were just making noise.

It’s not the real deal if you’re just making noise.

Paul is saying don’t mistake spiritual activity for spiritual maturity.

Love is humble and others directed. It’s not for show. It doesn’t just make noise. It’s the real deal.

The application for us in this passage, as is the main point of the Bible in some regards, is to hold our love up to this and realize how far we fall short. We need God to love like this – to love with the same self-sacrificing love that doesn’t consider ourself but pursues the good of others.

Have you ever been loved like that? If not, I’m sorry. I just want us to surround you and hold you in our arms and say I’m sorry we suck. If you have been loved like that, pay it forward – pay it forward to another.

God loves us out of our sin. God doesn’t shame or guilt us. God loves us out of our sin.

In Psalm 119 (NLT) the psalmist writes, “5 Oh, that my actions would consistently reflect your decrees! 6 Then I will not be ashamed when I compare my life with your commands…”

“I have chosen to be faithful; I have determined to live by your regulations. 31 I cling to your laws. Lord, don’t let me be put to shame!”

And again, “37 Turn my eyes from worthless things, and give me life through your word. 38 Reassure me of your promise, made to those who fear you. 39 Help me abandon my shameful ways; for your regulations are good. 40 I long to obey your commandments! Renew my life with your goodness.”

God loves us out of our sin, our guilt, our shame.

The highest calling of the Christian is that we would reflect that love into the world and see others changed by the deep, deep love of Jesus.