I Corinthians 13
1 Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned,[a] but have not love, it profits me nothing.
4 Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; 5 does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; 6 does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; 7 bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
8 Love never fails. But whether there are prophecies, they will fail; whether there are tongues, they will cease; whether there is knowledge, it will vanish away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect has come, then that which is in part will be done away.
11 When I was a child, I spoke as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child; but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.
13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
SERMON
I used to wear black on Valentine’s Day. I did.
I told my wife this. “Why?” she said, “that is just weird.”
“Well, the first year, it was a group of us guys that had a group we called the losers club. We were freshmen in college. We had the theme, “There ain’t a woman we can’t scare!” We would see each other on campus and we would put a big “L” on our foreheads. Our secret little nerdy society. Since none of us had a shot in the world in having a date we decided to all dress in black, go to the basement of the student union, and goof off. We might have even played a game of RISK that night”, I replied
“My sophomore year my fiancé broke up with me on Valentine’s Day,” I went on, “And the next year I got dumped on the week of Valentine’s Day.”
“You got dumped on Valentine’s Day?” Jennifer said, “that is kind of cold.”
It was. And it was my tradition from that point on, because I did not really have someone I was in a relationship with for several years at that time, that I would wear black on Valentine’s Day.
Might also be one of the reasons I developed a strong interest in Johnny Cash in my 20s. The man in black.
I don’t know about you, but I was always eager to get Valentine’s when I was a little kid, but stingy in giving them. I would pour over which Valentine’s to give to what person, because I did not want to give any one person the wrong impression. You give too nice a Valentine to some girl, and that girl might think you like her when you really don’t. Or she might know you like her, and make a big scene about how she does not really like you. High pressure stuff this Valentine’s day.
For some of us, the high pressure can last into adulthood. For many couples, it is a special time every year to express their devotion to one another. I read in the paper how J.H. McCuistion always has doted on Marybeth McCuistion on Valentine’s Day, and it over fifty years has not forgot to make the day special. At first, I want to say, “Good job, J.H.” This is quickly followed by, “Thanks a lot J.H, for making any of us who ever fail on Valentine’s Day look bad.”
My wife always tells me that Valentine’s Day is a Hallmark holiday designed to make vendors more money, so I don’t need to do anything for her. I always do a little something, which always at one point includes an electronic dancing and singing animal that professes my love that I picked up at Walgreens. My personal favorite is the dalmation that is dressed as a fireman and sings, “Fiiiiireeee..bow bow bow….”
As I said earlier, we as a nation talk a lot about love. We love our new pick-up truck and we love our favorite flavor of ice cream (mine happens to be Tin Roof Sundae). We love the way someone laughs, we love the last good movie we watched. We say we love lots of different things.
In our culture, we often think of love as some sort of sentiment. As an experience that makes us feel full of joy and appreciation.
In our culture, we often make the idea of love something that is about us. Making us feel good. Making us feel appreciated. Making us feel adored. So, then people describe themselves as “falling in love” when they discover a romantic interest, and then later say they “fell out of love” when that romantic interest becomes tired or boring, and the novelty of their presence wears off.
Our culture gets love so wrong. Love is not a sentiment. It is not a feeling. It is not something you just fall into, the way you fall after missing a step and stumble down the stairs. It is not something you fall out of, the way you might fall off a parade float on Missouri Day if you got the lawn chair you were sitting on a little close to the edge of the trailer and you hit a bump and went flying. It is not even something that is really about you and getting your needs met.
In fact, love is the opposite of it being all about you. It is not about you. Love is an action word. It is something you should give more than receive. Love is a choice to care about someone more than yourself. It is not a wave you ride, like a surfer coming into shore. It is a decision you make and then act upon.
A cursory reading of the book of Corinthians lets you know that it was a struggling church. They were getting just about everything wrong. They turned the Lord’s Supper into a kegger. A prominent man in the church is sleeping with his father’s life, and the church is tolerating the behavior. They are not even sure if they believe in the death and resurrection of Christ it appears!
When we get to I Corinthians 13, the Apostle Paul is discussing with the church a problem they were having with the exercise of spiritual gifts. I appears that several people in the church were making the receiving and exercise of spiritual gifts all about them. One person would believe that they had the gift of prophecy, and eagerly announce their gift and flaunt their abilities before the church. Another would say they had the gift of healing, and attempt to impress everyone with their gift. Another would say God had given them the gift of supernatural insight, and would begin to force his “insights” into every situation. Another would say he spoke in tongues more than others, and that these tongues were a badge of spiritual honor. Church became a spiritual beauty pagent, a competition between them to demonstrate whose gifts and skills that were given to build up the church are most valuable to it. Paul has a message to the Corinthian church. He is very direct. Corinthians, he says, it is not about you-your gifts, your status, your goodness.
After correcting them about any certain hierarchy of gifts, the apostle Paul wants them to be aware of the virtue that must infuse all that they do as Christians and as a church. And that virtue is love. He says to the Corinthians, in effect, it is not about you, it is all about love.
I Corinthians 13 starts by talking about how everything else is inferior to love. You can all sorts of great and wonderful things, but if those wonderful things are not accompanied by love they do not matter much. He wants them to know that spiritual formation begins with character transformation.
You can understand all Scripture and proclaim God’s Word perfectly to the whole world. If you don’t have love, it does not amount to a hill of beans. You can have enough faith to look at Pike’s Peak, and tell it to move south 20 miles, and the mountain obeys. You can be that powerful in your spiritual walk, but if you are unloving and self-centered, it won’t matter for much of anything. You be the richest person in the world, and then give all your money away to the poorest of the poor. But if you do all this, and you don’t have love in your heart, it is a completely hopeless and worthless gesture.
Husbands, you can provide a beautiful home for your wife. You can be the most handsome man on the planet. You can work your fingers to the bone to support your family. You can buy her the perfect present every Valentine’s Day. You can go to every chick flick she wants you to go to, and cry at all the appropriate parts. You can compliment her every day. You can sit by her side and hold her hands every time she is sick. But, if you do not love her, if you do all these things in some strange sense of obligation and duty, you are just wasting your time.
Wives you can cook a perfect meal for your husband every night, you can give birth to children who grow up to find the cure for cancer, and you can be the sexiest woman alive, but if you are selfish and don’t love your man with all your heart, all of the hoops you jump through are not going to mean a thing.
Parents, you kids can have all the right clothes in the perfect home. You can know what your children think before they think it, and have all the right words, but if you don’t truly love them, all those things to be a “good parent” are not going to matter.
So, what is love then?
Let us look at verses 4-7, and simply take each of these descriptions of love step by step.
Love suffers long—Some more contemporary versions use the word “patient”. Long suffering is a better explanation of the word here. Note that in our culture we think love makes us feel lighter, happier. Scripture says true love begins with the willingness to suffer for those you love.
Love is kind—pretty self explanitory
Love does not parade itself—Again another good expansion of the word in the New King James Version. Love is not about saying “look at me!” Look how loving I am. In more contemporary translation will be translated “boast”. This is an easy one to stumble on. Some of us do something loving for someone and want everybody to notice. We say or act like, “Hey look at me, my dear wife, look at the wonderful thing I have done for YOU. Aren’t I so LOVING. The Bible says at that point you are not being loving, you are being selfish and self-promoting.
Love is not puffed up—The literal meaning of the word that is often translated proud. The word picture behind the word is someone who is walking around with their chest out and their nose in the air. Ego leads us to do things to make ourselves feel proud. For people to take notice. God says that love is humble, serving in ways that people hardly notice. It is not proud.
Love does not behave rudely—This word for rude is interesting. It most literally means unpresentable. It speaks specifically most often of a person who is in defiance of social and moral standards, resulting in embarrassment, disgrace or shame. It is often used in relation to sexual misconduct that brings shame on one’s spouse, family or church, but it is not used for this exclusively for this. A person who loves does not bring shame, embarassment, or ridicule on their family because of their lack of character.
Our culture tells us our personal lives and personal behavior are our business. The truth is everything we do has an effect on the people around us. And we can often do things and say that what we are doing is personal, when it has far reaching impacts on our parents, our spouse, our children, our friends. When we don’t take other people in consideration before we do something immoral or shameful, we are being completely uncaring and unloving.
Love does not seek its own—It is not self-centered or self-seeking. Love is the opposite. It puts the object of love first. Hate is not the opposite of love. Selfishness is.
Love is not provoked—Pretty straight forward. Love is not retaliatory or reactionary. It thinks about what is most loving. It does not demand its rights.
Love does not think evil—This is an awkward statement in the New King james Version. The NIV gets it better. It says, “keeps no record of wrongs”. In other words, when you love someone you do not dwell on all of the things that they have done wrong. You have grace. You forgive if you love. You don’t have this big list of the things someone has done wrong that you use to manipulate them or punish them whenever you do not get your way.
So often we do this. We say we love someone, but the minute they slip up we remind them of everything they have ever done wrong in their entire life. We keep a laundry list of sins about a person, and we never let it go. A person who does this is choosing NOT TO LOVE as God commanded.
Love does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth—This is another interesting word choice in the original language. It is interesting because the word for iniquity here relates closely to injustice. Furthermore, injustice is contrasted with truth. So, what this part of the passage is saying is that love finds joy when it is able to find ways for people to get treated fairly, equally, to have equal opportunity and be able to overcome. When we stand for injustice, when we remain silent in face of that kind of evil, we are choosing to be BOTH dishonest and unloving.
Love bears all things—a positive way of describing the willingness to go through hard things in order to love. And a commitment to not only suffer in order to love in the past, but a willingness to love the same way in the future.
Love believes all things—Love trusts those it loves. It looks forward to the future with a trust which knows that in that love will overcome.
Love hopes all things—It always looks to someone, and sees there potential, their ability, what God is going to do with them
Love endures all things—Again a loving person has made a commitment to love. A person who loves a church or a person does not just love them when it is easy. They continue to love when it is hard.
Love never fails—We think of love as sentimental, soft, cuddly. Love is instead tough, tenacious, and always victorious.
Then this passage goes on to describe our human efforts as incomplete. If we do good thing, but we do them without love, we will find that what we have put our focus on has no eternal value.
If we choose to live in love, we will be like a child. We will have to grow. We will have to put away childish things. And we will have to look toward Christ, who is the described as that which is perfect.
You want to be mature, Paul says, learn to love. Immaturity is self-centered. As we grow we learn to love. We learn to be others-centered. True Biblical love is a sign of maturity. My Karis is the most beautiful thing in the world, but she is also completely self-centered. When she wants something she cries. If she is interested in something she grabs it. She doesn’t consider how it will effect other people. Nor should she. She is 8 months old.
But if you are still as self-centered, inconsiderate, and unempathetic as Karis when you are 20, 30 or 40, you are a childish selfish jerk. God wants us to grow up in Christ. And growing up in Christ is growing in the kind of love that Christ shared and demonstrated for us.
You want to be strong in Christ? Choose to love?
You want to live a life that matters? Love.
Want to make an eternal impact in the world? Love.
You want to prove your strength as a man, as a husband, as a father? Then choose to truly love. Love courageously. Choose to put others above yourself, even when it hurts. Love sacrificially. Choose to put aside your selfish agenda to serve your family, your friends your church.
You want to be the kind of woman God wants you to be? Love with endurance. Choose not to just act lovingly when you feel like it, but choose to truly be kind and fair even when you don’t want to. Choose to see the best in your friends, your husband, and your children instead of looking to find fault. Treasure the people God has given you in your life, instead of longing for something better. Your love will make your world better, your life better, everything better.
Above all though, if you want to have a life that matters, live a life full of the love that Jesus demonstrated. A life full of love. A life full of compassion. A life that had love that changed people and healed people.
If you want to have a life that matters, if you want to have a life that is triumphant and victorious model your life after the love of Jesus. A love that was not afraid to leave the comforts of heaven to dwell with men and women like you and I. A love that was willing to be patient and bear with people like you and I as he taught and led us. A love that was so sacrificial that Jesus laid down his life in an act of complete suffering and agony. A love that found victory through suffering, and was able to heal others through his wounds. Trust in that love, live in that love, and God will reward you, God will bless you, and God will allow you to have a life that has eternal impact. Amen.
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