1 CORINTHIANS 13 LOVE NEVER FAILS!
13:1 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. 2If 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. 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
8Love 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. 9For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 11When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me. 12Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
PRAY
1. The Word LOVE
a. Inspiration for many songs, poems, and even life-changing events
b. The world has taken the precious meaning of the word and reduce it’s meaning to beer commercials, or slang terminology
c. It has lost it’s purpose
2. Reminder of what LOVE really is
a. Paul reminds the Corinth church that the greatest gift to us is LOVE!
b. The only way to understand this is to know God because God is LOVE!
“And so we know and rely on the love God has for us, God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him. In this way, love is made complete among us.” (I John 4:16-17)
c. That is what I want to look at this evening (Making God’s love more complete among us.)
God’s Greatest Gift is Love:
I. Everything Fails
II. God’s Love Never Fails.
Context:
Ch 11 & 12 Paul has told the early believers that they were different—different parts in the body of Christ, but they were one body. They were united by faith.
· They were reminded that they should not concentrate on their gifts so much as to underestimate God’s Love.
· It had become a problem; they thought that their gifts were more important than anything else.
· Read the last verse of Chapter 12 “Eagerly desire the greater gifts and now I will show you the most excellent way” (That is going to be LOVE, because Gods love never fails)
I. Everything Fails (The Example)
a. Comparison of gifts to God’s LOVE
VS. 1 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. (Paul is just an empty noise if he is without love) 2If 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 .(If I have mountain-moving faith but am without love, I amount to nothing. I am a zero.) 3If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. (Without love, all good intended actions amount to nothing. Without love, a person’s life means nothing. Without love, a person cannot do the things that a Christian ought to do.)
b. Paul reminds these believers that all these things will FAIL!
VS 8 But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. (it will all be gone. But LOVE never fails.)
c. Paul is focusing them on what is really important—God’s LOVE!
i. He tells them to grow-up and not just in years, but in knowledge and wisdom and in their Faith.
VS11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.(The Lord caused him to grow-up in his faith—to see the only thing that was important in his life and that was the love of God)
· When everything else fails, love never fails.
· Sounds too simple. BUT that just how the Lord works.
· Think about it, the Lord would always have us concentrate on those things that are DIVINE (things that are CONNECTED with God)
· Yet, how hard that is to do in our everyday lives.
· It’s so easy to get attached to the things of this world—to those things that aren’t DIVINE.
d. We forget God’s greatest gift is LOVE
i. We might think it is FAMILY
ii. We might think it is NICE HOUSE, GOOD CLOTHES, or GOOD FOOD.
iii. That is simply a part of our SINFUL NATURE
e. Jesus warning His disciples, as He also warns us today.
i. "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal"(Matthew 6:19)
ii. Jesus reminds us that everything else that we see in this world FAILS!
iii. It is corrupted by moths or rust or simply falls apart.
iv. Jesus tells that robbers and thieves steal these things that we would try to hoard up (this is just a reminder that everything fails)
v. Not just the tangible. Things that are unseen as well. (Men’s thoughts and opinions come and Go!)
"Why, you do not even know what will happen tomorrow. What is your life? You are a mist that appears for a little while and then vanishes.” (JAMES 4:14)
vi. What then do we do? (Everything failing, falling away)
1. We rely on the LOVE that God has shown us!
f. We grow-up in our Faith
i. Year after year
ii. Day after day
1. What a privilege it is to live in a country where you can pick up a Bible for minimal cost.
2. Where we can read God’s word day to day without threat
3. Where we can meet where we want to study God’s word.
4. When we do that, we grow bit by bit in our Christian faith.
iii. As we Hear, Read, Study
1. We increase our knowledge of God’s love for us.
"But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil.” (HEBREWS 5:14) (In a world that has a hard time of distinguishing what is GOOD and what is EVIL, rejoice in the fact that God in His love has given you the ability to know what is right and what is wrong by being trained by God’s word.)
No wonder then, that Paul says God’s greatest gift is love. When we look at everything around us that fails, he tells us:
II. God’s Love Never Fails.
a. Started in a sense, with the NEGETIVE.
i. Showing us that these gifts weren’t going to last forever. They would FAIL!
b. The POSITIVE
i. VS. 8 “Love never fails.”
c. The List
i. We see and understand that it is the opposite
ii. Opposite of what you and I have grown up with in this world.
iii. Opposite of what we see in the world.
VS.4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. (These believers were always seeking their own glory. He said LOVE is not SELF-SEEKING) He goes on… 6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. (Again, just the opposite of mankind’s sinful nature. We always like to think the worst first. LOVE rejoices in the truth. This positive love is not on just a part-time basis or whenever God feels he ought to apply love to the world.) 7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.(Paul says this in context to everything else falling, knowing now that everything fails, LOVE is just the opposite.)
· It hopes all the time
· It perseveres all the time
· Protects all the time
· Always—God’s LOVE.
d. Understanding God’s perfect will
i. Paul recognizes that we have a hard time understanding God’s perfect will
VS. 12 Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
ii. We know that God’s will is perfect
iii. We know that the Lord does all things well
iv. BUT, on this side of heaven, our sinful nature clings to us
MIRRORS of New Testament time: were not made of glass with a perfect reflection. But of polished metal.
Summing it UP.
VS. 13 And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.
· Why would Paul say the greatest of these is love?
· To understand that, we have to understand, what is love?
o What is this love that is greater than faith?
o What is this love that is greater than hope for us?
· It is a love, a peace that surpasses all understanding.
· At the very beginning, we heard God is love.
· That’s the only way that you and I can understand love, is to understand God.
God shows us his love doesn’t he?
· A beautiful verse from Titus "But when the kindness and love of God our Savior appeared, he saved us, not because of righteous things we had done, but because of his mercy"(TITUS 3:4,5a)
This verse describes Jesus, our Savior, as the love of God. That is love.
Jesus, our Savior, is love. Out of love, God saved us, out of His grace and mercy.
· Because of that, you and I have lives that are changed.
· You and I are able live lives in this world without fretting about every disaster.
· You and I have lives that can be filled with joy and contentment.
· You and I have lives that are reflective of God’s love because we live our life not wondering what is good and right.
· We live our life knowing what is good and right and trying to live that way—all because of God’s love, a love that never fails.
PRAY
