A little girl stayed for dinner at the home of her first-grade friend. Her friend’s mother brought a bowl of buttered broccoli to the table and asked the little girl if she liked it.
The little girl replied very politely, “Oh yes, I love it!” But when her friend’s family passed the bowl around the table, the little girl let it pass.
Her friend’s mother said, “I thought you said you loved broccoli.”
The little girl replied sweetly, “Oh yes, ma’am, I do, but not enough to eat it!” (James Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited, p.434)
That word “love” gets used, abused, and misused a lot. People say they “love” certain kinds of foods, or they “love” certain activities, or they “love” certain people. So much so that the word has lost its meaning.
The Bloomberg Billionaires Index currently lists the 78-year-old Larry Ellison as the tenth-wealthiest person in the world, with an estimated fortune of $84.2 billion (“Bloomberg Billionaires Index: Larry Ellison,” Bloomberg, October 5, 2022). Ellison was the founder and CEO of Oracle Corporation until 2014.
When he was 30, his sister asked him, “Which is more important, to be loved or to be respected?”
Ellison responded, “To be respected.”
His sister replied, “Wrong” and left the room.
At age 50, Ellison said, “With wealth and fame, you get respect. But 20 years later, I figured out she was right. Ambition is a false god” (Business Week, May 15, 1995, pp.95-96).
The most important thing is love, without which life loses all meaning and significance. If you have your Bibles, I invite you to turn with me to 1 Corinthians 13, 1 Corinthians 13, the great “love chapter” in the Bible, where we learn the significance of love.
1 Corinthians 13:1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal (ESV).
No matter how eloquent my speech, without love, I am just making a lot of noise.
1 Corinthians 13:2 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 (ESV).
No matter how excellent my skills, without love, I am nothing.
1 Corinthians13:3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing (ESV).
No matter how extraordinary my sacrifice, without love, there is no benefit. Love gives my speech, my skills, and my sacrifice real significance. Otherwise, I accomplish nothing. I realize no lasting value, only useless activity and irritating noise. So, above anything you say or do…
LOVE PEOPLE AND BE EFFECTIVE.
Care for others and be productive. Cherish individuals and affect real change for the better.
The Springtide Research Institute recently (2020) surveyed more than 10,000 Americans ages 13 to 25, otherwise known as “Generation Z.” The researchers wanted to know what motivates this generation, which doesn’t trust organized religion.
Rather, according to the study, they respond to “relational authority.” That's authority not based on hierarchy or titles, but which comes from a genuine interest in them as individuals. 4 in 5 Gen Z members surveyed said they were likely to take guidance from adults who care about them.
The report pinpoints five values that characterize this relational authority: listening, transparency, integrity, care, and expertise. Expertise comes last on the list intentionally, because 65% of young people say an adult’s expertise doesn’t matter unless the adult cares for them (Jana Riess, “Gen Z is lukewarm about religion, but open to relationships,” Religious News Service, 12-21-20; www.PreachingToday.com).
That’s not only true for Generation Z. It’s true for all generations. People don’t care what you know until they know that you care. So if you want to make a real difference in people’s lives, spend time with them, listen to them, and by that let them know you care.
The skin horse had lived longer in the nursery than any of the others. He was so old that his brown coat was bald in patches and showed the seams underneath, and most of the hairs in his tail had been pulled out to string bead necklaces. He was wise, for he had seen a long succession of mechanical toys arrive to boast and swager, and by-and-by break their mainsprings and pass away, and he know that they were only toys, and would never turn into anything else. For nursery magic is very strange and wonderful, and only those playthings that are old and wise and experienced, like the skin horse, understand all about it.
“What is real?” asked the Rabbit one day, when they were lying side by side near the nursery fender, before Nana came to tidy the room. “Does it mean having things that buzz inside you and a stick-out handle?”
“Real isn’t how you are made,” said the Skin Horse. “It’s a thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you become real.”
“Does it hurt?” asked the Rabbit.
“Sometimes,” said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful. “When you are Real you don’t mind being hurt.”
“Does it happen all at once, like being wound up,” the Rabbit asked, “or bit by bit?”
“It doesn’t happen all at once,” said the Skin Horse. “You become. It takes a long time. That’s why it doesn’t’ often happen to people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or have to be carefully kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose in the joints and very shabby. But those things don’t matter at all, because once you are real, you can’t be ugly, except to people who don’t understand” (Margery Williams, The Velveteen Rabbit, pp.16-17).
Love makes people real! It creates beautiful souls. So love people and affect real change for the better. Love people and be effective. More than that…
LOVE PEOPLE AND BE EXCELLENT.
Care for others and develop perfection of character. Cherish individuals and grow towards Christlikeness, becoming the person you’ve always wanted to be.
1 Corinthians 13:4-7 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 (ESV).
Paul lists 15 qualities of love here—7 negative and 8 positive—and they answer all the problems this book addresses so far. The Corinthian believers were suing each other (1 Corinthians 6:8), but love is patient. Literally, love is long tempered. It has the capacity to be wronged and not retaliate. The Corinthian believers were envious of each other (1 Corinthians 3:3), but love does not envy. The Corinthian believers loved to boast in arrogance (1 Corinthians 3:21; 4:6, 18-19; 5:2; 8:1), but love does not boast; it is not arrogant (or more literally, puffed up). The Corinthian believers loved to demand their own rights, especially when it came to eating meat offered to idols (1 Corinthians 10:24), but love does not insist on its own way. Whatever problem you have, love is the answer.
Babe Ruth had hit 714 home runs during his baseball career and was playing one of his last major league games. The aging star was playing for the Boston Braves against the Cincinnati Reds. But he was no longer as agile as he had once been. He fumbled the ball and threw badly, and in one inning alone, his errors were responsible for five Cincinnati runs.
As the Babe walked off the field after the third out, booing and catcalls cascaded from the stands. Just then a young boy jumped over the railing onto the playing field. With tears streaking his cheeks, he threw his arms around the legs of his hero. Ruth didn't hesitate. He picked up the boy, hugged him, and set him down on his feet with a playful pat on the head.
Suddenly the booing stopped. In fact, a hush fell over the entire park. In those brief moments, the crowd saw a different kind of hero: a man who in spite of a dismal day on the field could still care about a little boy (Alfred Kolatch in Guideposts, August 1974; www.PreachingToday.com).
Love overcame his failures, and love will do the same for you. Love conquers all, no matter what problem you have.
That’s because the qualities of love express the character of Christ Himself. So if you want to know what Christ is like, just read Paul’s list of love’s traits here.
Jesus is most certainly patient and kind (vs.4). He did not retaliate when His own creation wronged Him, hanging Him on a cross. 1 Peter 2:23 says, “When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly.”
Jesus certainly did not insist on His own way (vs.5). In fact, He did just the opposite. He gave up His rights as God to die on a cross for your sins and mine. Philippians 2 says, “Though he was in the form of God, [He] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross” (Philippians 2:6-8).
In the midst of His own suffering, Jesus bore all things, believed all things, hoped all things, and endured all things (vs.7). He bore our sins on the cross. He entrusted Himself to His Heavenly Father. And He looked forward to a glorious future, even as He endured the hostility of sinners against Him.
Hebrews 12:2-3 says, “Look to Jesus… who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. Consider him who endured from sinners such hostility against himself, so that you may not grow weary or fainthearted.”
Jesus shows us what love is all about. Romans 5:8 says, “God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”
In her book Ten Fingers for God, Dorothy Clarke Wilson writes about a time when Dr. Paul Brand joined a group of leprosy patients in India, who had gathered for fellowship. They asked him to speak.
Dr. Brand had nothing prepared, yet he willingly stood up, paused for a moment and looked at their hands, some with no fingers, and some with only a few stumps. Then he spoke: “I am a hand surgeon, so when I meet people, I can't help looking at their hands. I would like to have examined Christ's hands. With the nails driven through, they must have appeared twisted and crippled. Remember, Jesus, at the end, was crippled too.”
The patients, on hearing this, suddenly lifted their poor hands towards heaven. Hearing of God's response to suffering had made their suffering easier (Dorothy Clarke Wilson and Philip Yancey, Ten Fingers for God: The Life and Work of Dr. Paul Brand, Paul Brand Publishing, reprint 1996; www.PreachingToday.com).
Jesus entered our suffering to save us from it. He could have stood aloof as God, letting us suffer the consequences of our own sinful choices. Instead, He entered our world where He took on our sin. He took on our shame. And He took on our pain. Jesus died in our place, suffering the punishment we deserved, so God could justly forgive all our sins and give us eternal life.
All you need to do is trust Jesus with your life. Entrust yourself to Him, who loved you from a cross. Let Him loose you from your sins and give you the power to love like He did.
For when you depend on Christ, you begin to exhibit the same qualities of love He did. And those qualities make you the person you’ve always wanted to be.
How would you like to be more patient and kind (vs.4), less selfish and irritable (vs.5)? How would you like to have the strength of character to bear all things, believe all things, hope all things, and endure all things just like Jesus did. Then let Jesus love people through you, because that is what love does! It makes you like Jesus!
A tyrannical husband demanded that his wife conform to rigid standards of his choosing. He required her to accomplish certain things for him as a wife, a mother, and a homemaker. He made a list of duties and chores he expected of her nearly every day. In time, she came to hate her husband as much as she hated his lists. Then, one day, he died—mercifully—as far as she was concerned.
Some time later, she fell in love with another man and married him. She and her new husband lived on a perpetual honeymoon. Joyfully, she devoted herself to his happiness and welfare. Then one day, she came across one of the lists her first husband had written for her. To her amazement, she discovered that she was doing everything on the list! Her new husband had never once suggested anything on that list, but she was doing them because she loved him (James S. Hewett, Illustrations Unlimited, p.501).
That’s what love does! Lists build resentment. Love brings results. So avoid lists and embrace love if you want to develop Christlike character.
For the law never made anyone a better person. Only love does. When you realize how much God loves you, and you respond by choosing to love Him and others, then you automatically keep the law; you automatically begin doing what’s right; you automatically start becoming the person you want to be.
So love people and be effective. Love people and be excellent. Finally…
LOVE PEOPLE AND BE ETERNAL.
Care for others and find permanence. Cherish individuals and achieve lasting results.
1 Corinthians 13:8-10 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 (ESV).
Jesus gave gifted people to the church to bring it to perfection (or maturity). Ephesians 4 says, “[Christ] gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until we all attain… to mature manhood”—or more literally, to a perfect man (Ephesians 4:11-13, see also Colossians 1:28).
So what happens when the church becomes perfect? What happens when God’s people become fully mature in His presence? The gifts become obsolete, because they are no longer needed. Today, God uses gifts like prophecy, tongues, and knowledge to perfect His church. But tomorrow, when the church achieves perfection, God will set those obsolete gifts aside. God will let them pass away, leaving only love intact.
It’s like a boy growing up. After he becomes a man, he puts away those things his father used to train him and bring him to maturity.
1 Corinthians 13:11 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 (ESV).
I gave up the learning toys, the primers, and the tutors. In the same way, when the church grows to maturity, it gives up the spiritual gifts that brought it to that point. When we become fully perfect in the presence of Christ, we will give up the helps that brought us there.
Why? Because then we will have perfect knowledge.
1 Corinthians 13:12 For now we see in a mirror dimly”—literally, now we see through a mirror in a riddle—"but then face to face. Now, I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known (ESV).
We will know God as much as He knows us. God will remove the dim or puzzling mirror so we can see Him face to face.
Christian author David Biebel writes, “I don't understand why the Lord allowed my sons to be afflicted with infantile bilateral striatal necrosis. I don't understand why Jonathan died or why Christopher lived… and [is] nearly totally recovered. “All I understand is this,” Biebel writes: “Life is a riddle, which God wants me to experience but not necessarily solve.”
When he was struggling to solve the riddle of his life, Biebel found this verse (1 Corinthians 13:12), which talks about seeing through a mirror in a riddle. It gave him the perspective he needed to live his life.
Biebel continues: “Modern Christians sometimes rush to put God's truth into little boxes, neatly systematized, categorized, organized, and principle-ized, when God's perspective on suffering is too big for any of that. While for some "spirituality" is defined by what you know, God may be more concerned with how you handle what you cannot know.
“A riddle loses its mystery and its power, even perhaps its significance, once it is solved. By keeping us in our riddle… God is helping us learn to walk by faith, and not by sight (David Biebel, Men of Integrity, Vol. 1, no. 2; www.PreachingToday. com).
But when the sight comes, what a glorious day that will be! Until then, trust God in the riddle of your life. Now, we see through a mirror in a riddle, but then face to face! Now, we need teachers and prophets to give us perspective to the riddle of our lives. Now, we need the spiritual gifts to help us grow despite the riddle. Then, when we know as we are known, those spiritual gifts will fade away into obsolescence.
Only love will remain.
1 Corinthians 13:13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love (ESV).
The greatest is love, because faith eventually becomes sight, hope is eventually realized, but love goes on forever.
Only love remains, so pursue love more than any spiritual gift; pursue love more than any special ability.
He held me close—a chill ran down my spine. I thought it was love, but it was just his popsicle melting (The Encyclopedia of Christian Marriage, p.20).
To be sure, love is not a spine-chilling feeling as much as it is an act of the will. The Greek word is agape, which goes beyond feelings of romance (eros) or feelings you have for your brothers and sisters (phileo). It’s God-like love, which gives for the benefit of another without expecting anything in return.
Several years ago, Ann Landers received a letter describing this kind of love:
Dear Ann Landers: I’m going to tell you about a love story that I witness every time I go to the nursing home to see my husband who has Alzheimer’s disease. Unfortunately, I know firsthand how this terrible illness affects family members, but I would like the world to now what love really is.
I see a man who, I understand, has spent the last eight years caring for his wife who has Alzheimer’s. They have been married for more than 50 years. He cooks and feeds her every bite of food she eats. He has bathed her and dressed her every day all these years. They have no other family. She lost a baby at birth, and they never had any more children.
I cannot describe the tenderness and love that man shows for his wife. She is unable to recognize anyone, including him. The only things she shows any interest in are two baby dolls. They are never out of her hands.
I observed him when I parked my car beside his the other day. He sat in his old pickup truck for a few minutes, then he patted down what little hair he had, straightened the threadbare collar of his shirt, and looked in the mirror for a final check before going in to see his wife.
It was as if he were courting her. They have been partners all these years and have seen each other under all kinds of circumstances, yet he carefully groomed himself before he called on his wife, who wouldn’t even know him. This is an example of the love and commitment the world needs today (Don Strohmeyer, “Pastor’s Thoughts,” Lyons News, October 6, 2022).
Such love is rare, but it can change the world! So love people and be effective, love people and be excellent, love people and be eternal.
Start by accepting God’s love for you. For you cannot give love until you have first received it.
Brennan Manning put it this way: It's more important to be loved than to love. When I have not had the experience of being loved by God, just as I am and not as I should be, then loving others becomes a duty, a responsibility, a chore. But if I let myself be loved as I am, with the love of God poured into my heart by the Holy Spirit, then I can reach out to others in a more effortless way (Brennan Manning, "The Dick Staub Interview: Brennan Manning on Ruthless Trust," ChristianityToday.com, posted 12-10-02; www.PreachingToday.com).
First, let God love you. Trust His Son with your life and accept the love He offers you. Then let Him love others through you.
