THIS IS LOVE
I Corinthians 13:1-13
INTRO.- ILL.- Here are some children’s ideas about love.
- Glenn, age 7 - If falling love is anything like learning how to spell, I don’t want to do it. It takes too long. (loving people takes a long time. It should take a lifetime. We should love people all our lives.)
- Tom, age 5 - Once I’m in kindergarten, I’m going to find me a wife.
- Kenny, age 7 - It gives me a headache to think about that stuff. I’m just a kid. I don’t need that kind of trouble.
- Regina, age 10 - I’m not rushing into love. I’m finding fourth grade hard enough.
- Angie, age 10 - Most men are brainless, so you might have to try more than once to find a live one.
- Dave, age 8 - Love will find you, even if you are trying to hide from it. I’ve been trying to hide from it since I was five, but the girls keep finding me.
- Ava, age 8 - One of you should know how to write a check. Because, even if you have tons of love, there is still going to be a lot of bills.
- Manuel, age 8 - I think you’re supposed to get shot with an arrow or something, but the rest of it isn’t supposed to be painful.
IL.- Here’s a love letter from a woman.
“Dearest Jimmy,
No words could ever express the great unhappiness I’ve felt since breaking our engagement. Please say you’ll take me back. No one could every take your place in my heart, so please forgive me. I love you. I love you. I love you!
Yours forever, Marie
“P.S. And congratulations on winning the state lottery.”
ILL.- A young man said to his father at breakfast one morning, “Dad, I’m going to get married.” “How do you know you’re ready to get married?” his father asked. “Are you in love?”
“I sure am,” said the son.
“How do you know you’re in love?” asked his father.
“Last night as I was kissing my girlfriend good-night, her dog bit me and I didn’t feel the pain until I got home.”
IS THAT WHAT YOU CALL “PUPPY LOVE”?
Brethren, we know that love is not just something that happens between a man and a woman. Love reaches out to all people, regardless of sex, age, rank, etc. And it is the way that all Christians should live!
ILL.- In the 1986 “Crocodile Dundee” movie, Dundee is, of course, from Australia and visits New York City for the first time.
As best I recall, he is being accompanied by a female newspaper writer and suddenly finds himself cornered by a gang of young thugs. When Crocodile Dundee does not give them his wallet, one young hoodlum pulls out a switchblade and threatens Dundee.
Crocodile Dundee simply reaches behind his back, while saying, “that’s not a knife,” and pulls out a large Bowie-type knife, saying, “THIS IS A KNIFE!”
As we read I Corinthians 13, we can almost hear the apostle Paul saying to the Corinthians about the world, “That’s not love...THIS IS LOVE!” The world’s version of love is not love! Most of the time it deals with lust.
ILL.- A new study found that sex on TV is rising. Well, duh! No kidding! The number of TV programs with sexual content rose from 56 percent in 1997/98 season to 68 percent in the 1999/2000 season. Today, three out of four primetime TV programs contain sexual content 75 percent of the time.
Movies are the most likely to contain sexual content (89 percent). Followed by sitcoms (84 percent) and soap operas (80 percent).
What does this say about the world? What does it say about what the world thinks of love?
The world is all messed up about a lot of things, including love. But let me hasten to say that Christians are not without problems in the love department and in other departments.
The church at Corinth was plagued with all kinds of problems. If you ever thought our modern day churches were the first to experience problems, think again. The church at Corinth had plenty of problems.
There were divisions over leaders and doctrines. There was incest and sexual immorality. There were problems over the Lord’s Supper in the worship services. There was division over the importance of spiritual gifts: who had what gift and which was the most important, etc. They were disorderly in their worship assemblies at times. THE CHURCH WAS SOMETHING OF A MESS!
And the apostle Paul wrote to them saying, “And now I will show you the most excellent way.” I Cor. 12:31b
In a sense, Paul was saying, “You’ve followed the way of the world and now I’ll show you the most excellent way, the way of Christ, the way of true love. The world does not offer true love. This is love.”
PROP.- Let’s examine this “most excellent way” of love in three ways:
1- The preeminence of love (vss. 1-3)
2- The performance of love (vss. 4-7)
3- The permanence of love (vss. 8-13)
I. THE PREEMINENCE OF LOVE
Vss. 1-3 The word “preeminence” means that which is superior, the best thing in life!
ILL.- A certain husband was really down-hearted. He said, “Everything in my life has gone wrong. My house just burned to the ground. My daughter eloped with a bum. My wife has left me. My credit cards are all maxed out. My checking account is overdrawn. My cholesterol is sky high. I’m about to have a nervous breakdown. The bank is foreclosing on my mortgage. AND THE CARDINALS JUST LOST TWO TO THREE IN THE NINTH! Imagine that! Two to three in the ninth!”
It sounds to me like all those bad things happened to that man because his priorities were mixed up! Baseball was the most preeminent thing in his life.
The Super Bowl is over. But now it’s basketball season. And then before we know it, it will be baseball season. Then fishing. And gardening. And golfing. And, of course, eating and shopping all ways “in season” and important to some people.
Brethren, we all have things that are important to us. We have our own priority list in life. We have our own ideas as to what is most important in life.
But Paul is saying in the first three verses of I Corinthians 13 that love should be the preeminent thing in our lives! Loving people should be one of the most important priorities in our lives!
- Love is more important than speaking in tongues.
DO YOU SPEAK IN TONGUES? I can say “hermano,” which is Spanish for brother and that’s about the extent of my speaking in tongues.
I realize that many people who are involved in the charismatic end of Christianity believe in “speaking in tongues” and practice it. Regardless of the kind of tongue you speak, it means nothing without a heart of love!
ILL.- A “tongues” minister came to a ministerial alliance meeting that I attended in Missouri many years ago. He came armed and dangerous. He came armed to put down every other preacher in that meeting. It was obvious what he was trying to do. And in the process, he was saying that he was superior and what he was believed was both right and superior. BUT HE WASN’T SHOWING ANY LOVE. All he did was alienate people and irritate them. When I left the meeting he and a Nazarene preacher were “going at it.” And it was not pleasant nor loving.
I don’t care if you can speak 20 different known languages or a heavenly or angelic language and can communicate with the best of them. It means nothing without a heart of love! Without love, our speaking is just a bunch of noise!
- Love is more important than the gift of prophecy or shall we say, the gift of preaching.
ILL.- A young minister complained to an older minister because he didn’t have a very big congregation. He said, “I love to preach!” The older minister, “But do you love the people to whom you preach?”
I’ve heard some mighty good preachers in my time, but if they don’t have time for people it means little. Loving people is what really counts in life. My preaching means very little if I don’t love you.
- Love is more important than knowledge.
ILL.- In our congregation at Anna, IL, we had at one time five people who had their doctorate degrees. And besides those, we had a host of others with either their bachelor or their master’s degree from college. But knowledge without a heart of love means nothing.
There is a great emphasis in our world on getting an education. And I am certainly not opposed to it. Knowledge should be helpful and enlightening, but in some people, knowledge hinders and hurts. (it hinders spiritual growth and hurts people)
ILL.- For example, I know of a certain Christian lawyer in one of our churches. He’s well educated, but I don’t know anything about his law practice. He may well be very good at it. BUT I’LL TELL YOU SOMETHING HE IS NOT GOOD AT IT: And that’s loving people.
He attends a Christian Church and many of the people think he’s a snot. He doesn’t give most people in the church the time of day, meaning he won’t look at them or speak to them. He may practice law, but he doesn’t practice love.
I Corinthians 8:1 “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.”
- Love is more important than faith.
How big is your faith? I’ve never moved mountains. I have trouble moving ant hills. That’s how big my faith is, sad to say. But I’ve run into some Christian people who were always positive, always on top of the world, always believed that everything was going to work out for the good. They always seemed to trust the Lord in everything.
ILL.- W. Carl Ketcherside was a man of great faith. He’s with the Lord now. He passed away probably 10 years ago. Carl came out of the non-instrument church of Christ and eventually became disgusted with the legalistic attitude that many people had in the church. In fact, Carl was disgusted with all the legalism that existed in all churches!
Legalism in the sense of saying, “I’m all right and you’re all wrong. What I believe is right and what you believe is wrong.”
A man said to Carl one time, “By the way you talk, you’d think that love was the most important thing in the world.” Carl replied, “THANK GOD, YOU FINALLY GOT IT.”
Carl and his wife, Nell, died in their 80’s. Do you know how they spent their last days? They ministered to the “down-and-outers” of the inner city of St. Louis, MO. Carl would talk to drug addicts and prostitutes about the Lord and how He could change their lives for the better.
Carl and his wife exemplified the truth that love is even more important than a great faith. But in my book, they possessed both.
No matter what you talk about (speaking in tongues, preaching, faith, missionary work, etc.) love is the preeminent thing in life! It should be the controlling force of your life! If you don’t love people then what you do or what you say won’t mean much to them or to God.
1- The preeminence of love.
II. THE PERFORMANCE OF LOVE
Vss. 4-7 Our love should do something, otherwise it isn’t love.
ILL.- My dad, Leo Shepherd, was a truck driver. He hauled livestock to and from the Joplin, MO, stockyards. Dad drove an old International Harvester six-cylinder truck and he had to get under it and changed his own oil. He would grease the fittings, and do most of the labor on it, except for major repairs.
Back then, most people were their own mechanic. We did things for ourselves. Worked on our own cars and trucks. Dad taught my older brother Larry and me how to change oil, how to change the spark plugs, ignition points, and several other things.
I got excited about my cars and tried everything I could think of to make them run faster, because I wanted more speed. I’d put in hotter spark plugs and change the carb jet, thinking these things would make my Chevy 6-cylinder run faster. THAT WAS A JOKE! There wasn’t much of anything you could do to make them run faster.
Of course, my dad would come along and say, “If it’s running all right, leave it alone!” BUT I WAS NEVER SATISFIED WITH HOW MY CAN RAN! I wanted it to run better and faster!
ILL.- Then when I was involved in the weightlifting I always wanted to lift more weights overhead. I started lifting when I was in high school and I don’t remember how much I started with, i.e. lifting over my head, but when I quit my Olympic weightlifting career I could clean and jerk 270 lbs. overhead. BUT I WAS AIMING FOR 300 LBS.! And I think I would have made it and then some if I hadn’t quit.
Who knows? If I hadn’t quit my Olympic weightlifting career, I might have become an Olympic Champion! (Well, I can dream, can’t I?)
ILL.- When I started jogging it was 11-minutes a mile. That’s slower than molasses in wintertime! Or slower than Grandma Shepherd and Grandma Jones and they were old. By the time I wore out my hip I was running 6 minutes a mile and sometimes faster!
My fastest mile was in a half-marathon race. It was my 7th mile and I ran it in 5 minutes and 12 seconds. Of course, it was all downhill and a big dog was chasing me! Just kidding. I liked running fast and I wanted to run faster and faster!
ILL.- When I work on these sermons I spend hours and hours reading and writing. Fine-tuning my words. Trying to produce the best thoughts possible with the Lord’s help. Why?
Why did I want my cars to run faster? Why did I want to lift more weights? Why did I want to run faster? Why do I want to produce and preach the best sermons possible?
Because I have always wanted to do a good job at whatever I did. I ALWAYS WANTED TO PERFORM WELL! BRETHREN, GOD IS INTERESTED IN OUR PERFORMANCE LEVEL! Both mine and yours. How’s your performance?
Oh, I know you do quite well at some things. But what God is really interested in, is your love performance! This is what Paul is talking about in verses 4 through 7. Here is the performance of love. Here is how our love should perform.
- Love is patient.
Are you patient, long-suffering with others? How’s your performance in that area? We put up with the cat and dog, why not people? DON’T ANSWER THAT.
We are patient with people who are over us or with people we respect, but what about people who are under us? What about being patient with people we don’t like?
ILL.- Like that lady manager at that one service station whom I consider to be somewhat rude. Will I be patient with her when she acts snotty toward me or when she won’t speak to me or say “thank you” when I purchase something from her?
I know. It’s hard to be nice to some people. It’s hard to be patient with some people. But love is patient. It suffers long.
Our Heavenly Father has been suffering a long time with mankind. With all our numbness, dumbness and sinfulness!
- Love is kind.
When was the last time that you did anything for anybody? That is kindness. Are we kind to our mates? To our children? To people in the church? To people outside the church? Do you take time for others? What do you do for others?
ILL.- Actor Arnold Schwarzenegger may be getting out of the movie-making business. Have you heard? That may mean losing around $20 million a picture. And for what? Arnold recently said, “I saw in the last 10 years that I’m getting much more pleasure out of (helping people) than making money and making movies...”
Hooray for Arnold! He’s getting more interested in helping people. That’s kindness. And love is kind. How’s your performance in that area?
- Love does not envy.
ILL.- Elaine and I still enjoy watching the TV show, “Who Wants To Be A Millionaire.” We enjoy it because it’s fun to try and answer the questions. And it’s interesting to watch the contestants. We’ve witnessed a lot of people on that show “blow it” simply because of their greed for more money. They want try to win more. Enough is not enough for some of them.
Brethren, there are an awful lot of people in our world who would like to be millionaires. Love does not envy others just because they have more than we do.
Love does not think, “He/she doesn’t deserve that job, that house, that car, that boat, that income. They’re no better than I am. I should have that....” Love does not envy others.
- Love is not self-seeking. Or selfish.
ILL.- Who controls the TV remote in your home? Who decides where you go out to eat? Who decides what movies you go see? Perhaps I’d better stop there.
Love is considerate of others. Love thinks of others.
Vss. 4- 7 CEV “Love is kind and patient, never jealous, boastful, proud, or rude. Love isn’t selfish or quick tempered. It doesn’t keep a record of wrongs that others do. Love rejoices in the truth, but not in evil. Love is always supportive, loyal, hopeful, and trusting. Love never fails.”
ILL.- Most marathon runners lack sprinting power at the finish. And most sprinters lack staying power. We all have strengths and weaknesses.
ILL.- I heard the Olympic and World Champion weightlifter, Tommy Kono, in person in 1972 say, “A champion is a champion not because he specializes on his strong points, but because he works on his weak points.”
DO YOU WANT TO BE A CHAMPION CHRISTIAN? Do you want to perform better as a Christian and in the love department? Then work on your weak points, your weak areas. You know what they are.
1- The preeminence of love
2- The performance of love
III. THE PERMANENCE OF LOVE
Vss. 8-13
Vs. 8 “Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease, where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.”
ILL.- Running has been one of the great passions of my life. It gave me a lot of satisfaction in doing something well and it gave me energy and vitality.
I attended the Ozark Christian College Preaching and Teaching Convention in 1996 and ran into a retired preacher I knew. His name was Ray Gipson. I told Ray how I had to quit running because my hip was worn out. He laughed and said, “God humbled you, didn’t he?”
I’m not sure that God caused my hip to wear out so I would have to quit running. I don’t think God considered my running as something evil and wanted to humble me. BUT HE DID WANT ME TO BE HUMBLE. HE HAS ALWAYS WANTED ME AND ALL OF US TO BE HUMBLE.
As I’ve said before, we live in an imperfect world where sin, aging, accidents, and disease happen. And they take their toll on our lives.
Brethren, I have learned that the things of this life don’t last! Even many good things. And even many good spiritual things.
ILL.- Boyce Mouton is one of the finest preachers I’ve ever known. He preaches at the First Christian Church of Carl Junction, MO. And before Carl Junction, He preached at the Fairview Christian Church of Carthage, MO, when I was ordained there in 1968. I listened to him preach for years and marveled at his insight, memory and ability to illustrate Scripture.
I sat in the chapel services at Ozark Christian College one day when the speaker didn’t show up that morning. President Don Earl Boatman said, “Our speaker didn’t show up today. Would anybody like to preach?” Boyce Mouton was in the audience. He stood to his feet and said, “I will. I promised the Lord I would never turn down an opportunity to testify for him.”
Boyce went to the platform and preached a sermon from I Corinthians chapter 4 on being fools for Christ. It was only a 20-minute sermon, but it “wowed” everybody that day.
Brethren, as great a preacher as Boyce Mouton is, do you know what I remember him for as much as anything? HIS CHILDREN HANGING ON HIM AFTER CHURCH AT THE DOOR WHEN THE PEOPLE WERE LEAVING.
Those children loved their daddy. I WONDER WHY? I wonder what it was that he manifested toward those children? Surely he must have demonstrated a great deal of love to his children.
And I remember Boyce’s easy-going spirit. His kindness. His love for people. His love for all people.
ILL.- We were getting ready for a Sunday night Bible study one time which Boyce was teaching. He asked if anyone would go pick up a man from the shelter care home nearby. You see, there was this older gentleman who was shabbily-dressed, didn’t appear to be too bright, but he always wanted to come to church. BECAUSE, YOU SEE, BOYCE HAD BEFRIENDED HIM.
I remember that well. I remember that Boyce loved that old boy.
Great preaching is wonderful. It is edifying. It is encouraging. It is helpful. BUT GREAT LOVING IS EVEN MORE WONDERFUL! And it will last and last. And when we’re dead and gone from this world we’ll be remembered most for our acts of love rather than our talents and abilities.
Love is the permanent thing! Speaking in tongues will cease. Prophecy and preaching will cease. Great speaking in any form will cease. Great knowledge will cease. BUT LOVE IS PERMANENT!
CONCLUSION-----------------------------------------
ILL.- A long time ago, a little five-year-old boy lived in an orphanage. He habitually stole from the other children. The superintendent of the orphanage tried talking to the boy, but it didn’t work. He just kept right on stealing. The superintendent tried all kinds of discipline, but nothing seemed to work.
Finally, someone suggested, “Let’s lavish love on him.” And in different ways the people who worked in that orphanage began to show love to that boy.
They began to show interest, to listen to him, to play with him, to hug him, etc. AND SUDDENLY, FOR NO APPARENT REASON, THE BOY STOPPED STEALING.
“Love never fails.”
The love of God has never failed and our love will never fail. Commit yourself to a life of loving others.
