If you ever feel frustrated with your church—God forbid!—then just read the Bible book of 1 Corinthians. First Church, Corinth was a real mess! People were fighting and gossiping. People were prideful. People were cliquish. And so the Apostle Paul wrote them a letter, trying to straighten them out.
A couple of weeks ago we looked at the chapter of this letter right before today’s, how the Holy Spirit gives each believer a spiritual gift. Paul notes there is a variety of gifts but one Holy Spirit behind them all. Right after that, Paul says, “Now let me show you a more excellent way.” Then he writes his most beautifully composed script, the love chapter of the Bible, what you often hear at weddings. He starts it, though, in the context of those spiritual gifts he’s been talking about. Paul says you can have the most amazing gifts ever—like speaking in the language of angels, or having enough faith to move mountains, or giving everything you have to the poor—amazing ways to serve God, but if you don’t have love, you have nothing. Pardon the grammar, but…without love, you got nothing!
That’s how important today’s subject is. Love trumps every spiritual gift, love tops every miracle God may work through you, love precedes every course of action you might take. Love stands above them all!
Certainly our world today is infatuated with infatuation. “What the world needs now is love, sweet love.” We have hosts of online dating services. We have reality TV shows where people pick a spouse. Hollywood depicts casual, first-date sex as the norm. The porn industry, meanwhile, nets more profit than all professional sports teams combined! Meanwhile, lots of people live lonely, loveless lives.
So what is love? Well, the Bible says, “God is love.” 1 John 4:8 says God is the very definition of love. So the more we get to know God, the more we understand love. The God-man Jesus, the second being of the Trinity, also personifies love. C.H Dodd once commented on today’s scripture, stating, “I Corinthians 13… is a portrait for which Christ Himself has sat.” If you want a role model in love, you have only to look at the life of Jesus.
Paul chooses the Greek word agape to describe godly love. It is more than the romantic sexual love of eros, although that also comes from God. It is more than the friendship bond of philia, or the parental sacrifice of storge, although both of those come from God as well. Agape is a sacrificial love which seeks to do what is best for the other. “For God so loved the world, that he gave… Agape love is a giving love.
An anonymous writer sought to describe this kind of love with the Poem: “What Is the Love of God?”
The love of God is like ... a mother’s calming words, a father’s strong embrace, a friend’s laughing countenance, telling my soul, “I am not alone in this world,
there are others who travel with me.”
The love of God is not like ... a list of joyless burdens, a symbol of power, a religion that spews hate and anger toward otherness, and makes God in its own image.
The love of God is like ... a safe place, a gift, a helpful note on life, love, responsibility, and death.
The love of God is not like ... a competition,
a salary earned,
a scolding from abusive parents who are not happy with how you turned out.
The love of God is like... a perfect day,
a one of a kind love,
a relationship so wonderful that words fail to do it justice.
That’s just one writer’s attempt to describe it. The Bible pictures agape love, God’s love, as love in action, not “love in abstraction.” True love acts! Let’s face it: words are cheap! You can tell someone you love them, but do your actions match up? Does your walk match your talk?
Donald Barnhouse took the nine fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5 and showed how love shines through each one. He writes, “Love is the key. Joy is love singing. Peace is love resting. Long-suffering is love enduring. Kindness is love’s touch. Goodness is love’s character. Faithfulness is love’s habit. Gentleness is love’s self forgetfulness. Self control is love holding the reigns.” I like that. Love acts.
Today’s scripture gives 15 attributes of true love in action. Don’t worry; I love you too much to put you through a 15-point sermon today. And really, they speak for themselves. On the positive side, Paul says love is patient with people and gracious with generosity. He also says what love is not, helping us understand it by its antonyms: Love never envies, or brags, or is arrogant, since that is not selfless service to others. Love is never rude or overbearing, love never wants its own way. It is not irritated or angered over personal offense, and finds no pleasure in someone else’s sin, even the sin of an enemy. On the positive side again, love is devoted to truth in everything. Love protects, believes, hopes, and endures what others reject. Love never fails.
This is love in action, love that puts the other person’s needs first, love that serves, love that builds into the lives of others, love that helps. It’s the kind of love that prompts you to sit in a hospital waiting room with a friend, to drop off a note of encouragement, to have the hard discussion about driving or about considering a change in living arrangements. It’s the love that cares about the other person’s interests, the love that serves a cup of coffee or piece of dessert, the love that patiently teaches a new player bridge.
Does the world need this kind of love? Yes! Yes, it does! God gives it to us, and God wants us to pass it on to others. Jesus urged people to be radical and not just love your friends but also love your enemies. Does that include the staff member who has frustrated you? Does that include the resident who always gets on your nerves or the relative who said something uncaring to you? Yes, yes, and yes. The gospel writer John records Jesus as saying, “As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34). Jesus got John’s attention so much with that message that, later, in his elderly years, John wrote a short letter to young believers (1 John), telling them no less than five times, “You must…love one another.”
Think about this: If love can be commanded, then it is not simply an emotion. You can’t command someone to be happy or sad. Love isn’t an emotion; Love is an action. Love is a decision. Love is the tool with which God builds up the body of Christ. And love for unbelievers is the bridge over which the gospel can cross. As the song states, “People will know we are Christians by our love.”
Love doesn’t just help its recipient but it benefits the giver, too. As the good book says, “It is more blessed to give than to receive,” for love is the antidote to our selfish, self-centered hearts. Ogden Nash once said,
If you want your marriage to sizzle
With love in the loving cup,
Whenever you’re wrong, admit it;
Whenever you’re right, shut up!
The theme of love as selflessness is at the core of Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. Behind all the divisiveness, all the puffed up sense of self-importance, all the cliquish activity, all the gossip, the Corinthians suffered from self-centered pride. And Paul says, the antidote is love, love that acts, love that serves, love that builds up the other. Paul introduced the chapter by saying, “Let me show you a more excellent way.” And he has. Now he ends by saying that love is the greatest gift of all—better even than faith, better even than hope itself.
Keep the faith. Don't lose hope. And above all else, let your lives be filled with Christ's love. You can’t manufacture this on your own. Rather, let God’s love flow into your life. Accept God’s reign over you; give him all your sin that was paid for at Calvary and accept his love and forgiveness fully. Then, let that divine love flow out of you into your church family and everyone you meet. When you struggle, ask for his help. He is more than ready to build your love muscles. Let us pray…
Dear Lord, thank you that you are the very definition of love. Help us to receive your love shown us most visibly by the sacrifice of your son Jesus for our sins. Help us to take that most perfect model of love and pass it on to others—those we like being around and those we do not, those who love us and even those who hate us. We need your help to do this, God, so we commit ourselves to you, in Jesus’ name, amen.
