Love Part 12

1Co 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.

1Co 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.

1 Co 13:3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

1Co 13:4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant

1Co 13:5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;

1Co 13:6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.

1Co 13:7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
                                                                                                                     1Co 13:8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

1Co 13:9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part,

1Co 13:10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away.

1Co 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.

1Co 13:12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.

1Co 13:13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

 

        Last time we covered verses 8 – 10 about the fact that love never ends. Love is the most important thing that we do as a Christian and is superior to tongues, prophesy knowledge etc. We also learned that if love is the root in your life than the fruits of the spirit will be what grows on you. I am not going to go over all the attributes of love that I have typically been doing on all these messages. Just bear in mind that love is always self-sacrificial and is always about others before you.

        We are going to cover the last three verses today and finish up this 12 part series. These last three verses have cause many theological debates to the actual meaning of the text. One such debate is on verse 11, which says…

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.

Some say that speaking refers to speaking in tongues, thought refers to prophesy and reasoning refers to knowledge. With that they say that all of those have ceased with the maturity of time and only love continues. While others will claim that this has nothing to do with those gifts. And then there is the big debate as to when all of this is supposed to take place or has it already taken place, it will take place when we are taken out of this world, etc. My point in all this is very similar as it was in my last message. It would seem to me that people spend so much time trying to decipher what exactly does the fact that there is 101 letters in that verse of which 42 are vowels mean. Of course I am exaggerating but not as much as you think. People do go that far in some cases. I understand the importance of studying the word of God and the importance of its correct interpretation but so often people seem to miss what would seem to be the most obvious.

If we put this all in context with Paul writing this letter of rebuke and correction and in light of the fact that he has spent a large amount of time telling the Corinthians that they are not paying attention to what is important.(As we spoke about last time). Is it possible that one of the things Paul is trying to teach the Corinthians is… You guys are acting like little children. Would you grow up and stop with this petty bickering and pride that you have. You’re not babies anymore stop acting like it!! I expect children, young Christians to act this way not you guys. There is obviously a lot more in there than just that but we should at least consider the obvious in context.

It does go on in verse 12 to say… 1Co 13:12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.    

This seems to fall into the grace aspect of love. I am perhaps taking a lot of liberty in this area but it is a concept that is consistent with biblical truth so I believe it is still in line. Jesus is our example of love. If we look at all the attributes of love that we looked at, we can see that Jesus accomplished all of that perfectly while He was on the earth. Even though he was in the flesh He knew no sin.     

 2Co 5:21  For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.   

We can take all those attributes and replace love with Jesus.

Let’s just take a minute to do that.

Jesus is patient and kind; Jesus does not envy or boast; Jesus is not arrogant or rude. Jesus does not insist on His own way. Jesus is not irritable or resentful; Jesus does not rejoice at wrongdoing but rejoices with the truth.   Jesus bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things endures all things. Jesus never ends.

The grace aspect is this… Jesus loves perfectly and we are called to be imitators of Christ. We will fail to love perfectly. There wasn’t a single attribute of love that we have gone over that I have accomplished perfectly. Some I down right failed miserably in. But we are still in the flesh and will fail. It is His righteousness that allows us to some day when the perfect comes that we will see Him as He is, we will see him face to face and know Him fully as He already knows us. I believe at that time we will be able to love completely and perfectly as He loves us.

So as we move on to our last verse.

1Co 13:13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Why is love the greatest? I believe that firstly when Paul wrote this, inspired by the Holy Spirit, that he indeed was describing Jesus in this chapter and pointing out to the Corinthians that they were focusing on themselves instead of on Christ. He was pointing them towards Christ which is the same thing we are called to do today. But let’s look at these three things. Faith, I have preached a lot on faith in the past and I have stressed the importance of faith and that without faith we are missing a vital part of our Christian walk. Then we have hope, which without hope what do we have? If I have no hope in Christ or heaven or in my salvation then it would cause me to fail. So we can see how important hope is to the Christian walk. But then we have love, why is love so much more important? Because as Paul stated earlier, Love never ends. When the perfect comes, Jesus has gathered up His saints. We no longer have need of faith. We have Jesus!! The evidence is now seen!! We no longer have to hope we are experiencing!! I am so looking forward to the day that I don’t have to have faith and hope. You had some faith and hope in Diamond Ridge this morning. You believed that they were going to bring you lunch today. Even though you did not see it you had faith and hoped that you would eat today. But when they placed the plate in front of you, you no longer needed faith and hope for that meal. But if your anything like me you still loved that meal!! You see, no matter what stage we are in life or resurrection, love will always exist. Even when we are living in the new earth that is waiting for us, we will still love and be loved by Jesus.