The Greatest of These…
1. This is love…
1 Corinthians 13:1-8 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. 8 Love never fails.
-Love is one of the main themes of Advent. That should be no big surprise since the Bible says that God Himself is love. Why did God send us a Savior? Love! John 3:16 – For God so loved the world…. Jesus is God’s expression of love to us! Jesus came as God in the flesh. NLT Hebrews 1:3 “The Son reflects God's own glory, and everything about him represents God exactly.”
-So, if God is love, and if Jesus is the exact representation of God to us, then we can safely say that Jesus is love. Jesus is God. (In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God.) As God the Son, He too can be described by the most powerful word in use today – love. So, let me read 1 Corinthians 13 again and wherever we see the word love or charity, let’s put the name of Jesus there. Follow along with me.
2. This is Jesus…
1 Corinthians 13:1-8 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not Jesus, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not Jesus, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not Jesus, I gain nothing. 4 Jesus is patient, Jesus is kind. Jesus does not envy, Jesus does not boast, Jesus is not proud. 5 Jesus is not rude, Jesus is not self-seeking, Jesus is not easily angered, Jesus keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Jesus does not delight in evil but Jesus rejoices with the truth. 7 Jesus always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8 Jesus never fails.
If you don’t have Jesus, you can’t really have genuine lasting love. And if you don’t have love, you certainly don’t have Jesus.
1 John 4:7-12 7 Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. 9 This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. 10 This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins. 11 Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. 12 No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us.
3. This is you…
(Put your name in here and see yourself for who you are in Christ! You have been changed by the power of His love!)
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 4 Mark is patient, Mark is kind. Mark does not envy, Mark does not boast, Mark is not proud. 5 Mark is not rude, Mark is not self-seeking, Mark is not easily angered, Mark keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Mark does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 Mark always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
-Remember who you are in Christ and what a difference His love has made and can make in your heart! We are able to love because He loved us first! 1 John 4:19 “We love because he first loved us.”
ILL. There is a story about a man named Doug Nichols. He went to India to be a missionary there, but while he was just starting to study the language he became infected with tuberculosis & had to be put in a sanitarium.
It was not a very good place to be. It was not very clean & conditions were difficult because there were so many sick people there. But Doug decided to do the best he could in that situation. So he took a bunch of Christian books & tracts & tried to witness to the other patients in the sanitarium.
But when he tried to pass out tracts, they were rejected. No one wanted them. He tried to hand out books, but no one would take them. He tried to witness, but he was handicapped because of his inability to communicate in their language, & he felt so discouraged.
Here he was. Because of his illness he would be there a long time. But it seemed like the work that he had been sent to do would not be done because no one would listen to him.
Because of his tuberculosis, every night at about 2 o’clock he would wake up with chronic coughing that wouldn’t quit. Then one night when he awoke he noticed across the aisle an old man trying to get out of bed. He said the man would roll himself up into a little ball & teeter back & forth trying to get up the momentum to get up & stand on his feet. But he just couldn’t do it. He was too weak.
Finally, after several attempts the old man laid back & wept. The next morning Doug understood why the man was weeping. He was trying to get up to go to the bathroom & didn’t have enough strength to do that. So his bed was a mess & there was a smell in the air.
The other patients made fun of the old man. The nurses came to clean up his bed & they weren’t kind to him, either. In fact, one of them even slapped him in the face. Doug said that the old man just laid there & cried.
Doug said, "That next night about 2 o’clock I started coughing again. I looked across the way & there was the old man trying to get out of bed once more. I really didn’t want to do it, but somehow I managed to get up & I walked across the aisle & I helped the old man stand up."
But he was too weak to walk, so Doug said, "I took him in my arms & carried him like a baby. He was so light that it wasn’t a difficult task. I took him into the bathroom, which was nothing more than a dirty hole in the floor, & I stood behind him & cradled him in my arms as he took care of himself."
"Then I carried him back to his bed & laid him down. As I turned to leave he reached up & grabbed my face & pulled me close & kissed me on the cheek & said what I think was `Thank you.’"
Doug said, "The next morning there were patients waiting when I awoke & they asked if they could read some of the books & tracts that I had brought. Others had questions about the God I worshiped & His only begotten Son who came into the world to die for their sins."
Doug Nichols says that in the next few weeks he gave out all the literature that he had brought, & many of the doctors & nurses & patients in that sanitarium came to know Jesus Christ as their Lord & Savior, too.
He said, "Now what did I do? I didn’t preach a sermon. I couldn’t even communicate in their language. I didn’t have a great lesson to teach them. I didn’t have wonderful things to offer. All I did was take an old man to the bathroom & anyone can do that."
[Borrowed from Melvin Newland, sermoncentral.com]
Someone has said, "People will not care how much you know, until they know how much you care." “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.” All the words and all the good deeds in the world become meaningless without love.
-So we come to the question, “Have you received the kind of love that changes you? Have you received the kind of love that never gives up or runs out? Have you received the love that enables you to love God and others?” Remember, God is love! Jesus is God in the flesh. God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes on Him would not perish, but have eternal life. Have you received God’s greatest expression of love - Jesus?
-John 1:11-12 11 He came to that which was his own, but his own did not receive him. 12 Yet to all who received him, to those who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God—
That’s why He came! So you could be loved and so you could give love. God gifted you with relationship, giving and receiving love that will last forever! Love is the greatest!
