The Survival of Love

Series on I Corinthians

VI Meeting for Worship

E Attitude in Worship, Text: 12:31b-13:13

Title: The Survival of Love

Introduction

Here we are at one of the best known and most beautiful passages of the Bible. Unbelievers are often startled at this powerful poetic portrayal of love and yet do not understand why Paul introduces the subject at this point. The translators of the King James Version translated the word charity rather than love. The word charity comes from the same Greek root, but perhaps they were avoiding a confusion with romantic love. This problem is still with us. In the world love is most often thought of as something emotional, you fall in and out of love. In the Bible love has to do with the will, and it means a lasting commitment. This provides a rare insight into the situation in Corinth. You see the Corinthians had a problem with engaging in worldly philosophy as Paul says in 1:20. And, the great Greek philosopher Plato said, “it is by madness that the greatest of blessings come to us,” in the Phaedrus, and he also said that, “No one in possession of his understanding has reached divine and true exaltation” in Timaeus. So the Corinthians thought the more ecstatic, the more out of your mind, the more you were possessed or dispossessed, the closer to God you were. Paul says never! True Christian service and true closeness to God comes not from the emotions, but the will; Not from being carried away but from being in full possession of your rational faculties. Thus the most important thing of all is not how you feel, but whether you are committed. And this is important in worship as in all of life. Paul says the best way, the greatest gift, the most excellent way is not speaking in tongues, or a word of knowledge or prophesying. It is love. We shall examine Paul’s argument here and we shall see love is the best because it is the purpose for service, the power of service and the perseverance in service.

I Love is the Purpose for Service

According to verses 1-3, not only gifts of knowledge but even gifts of service when exercised without love are nothing, And now I will show you the most excellent way. 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. If 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 give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. Not only may I teach without love, but i can give my time and treasure and talent, i can sacrifice and suffer, and yet be without love. How is this possible? It happens when i do any of these things with the unholy motivation of self-interest. When i do them for reputation or money, or self-satisfaction. In “The Four Loves” C.S. Lewis writes “Do not waste time bothering whether you “love” your neighbor; act as if you did. As soon as we do this, we learn one of the great secrets. When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love them. If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more. If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less. There is however one exception. If you do him a good turn, not to please God and obey the law of love, but to show him what a fine forgiving chap you are, and to put him in your debt, and then sit down to wait for his “gratitude,” you will be disappointed. let me tell you this business of feeling good about yourself is way overrated.” It is true that we are made in God’s image and are inherently valuable. It is also true that Jesus loved us enough to die for us, but I can also tell you that every time I start feeling good about myself I feel too good, and God sends a little trouble or disappointment to bring me down off the pedestal. The purpose for our service is love and not pleasing ourselves. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness may be guaranteed in our constitution but you will only find them in giving yourself for others as the obedient servant of Jesus Christ.

II Love is the Power for Service

Here in verses 4-7 follows the self denying description of a life directed toward others, Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres. It is shockingly altruistic. To paraphrase, Paul describes someone who is: Slow to suspect — quick to trust, slow to condemn — quick to justify, slow to offend — quick to defend, slow to reprimand — quick to forbear, slow to belittle — quick to appreciate, slow to demand — quick to give, slow to provoke — quick to conciliate, slow to hinder — quick to help, and slow to resent — quick to forgive. This is exceedingly hard. Again from C.S. Lewis we read, “Love anything, and your heart will certainly be broken. If you want to keep it intact, you must give your heart to no one, not even to an animal. Wrap it carefully round with hobbies and little luxuries; avoid all entanglements; lock it up safe in the casket or coffin of your selfishness. But in that casket — safe, dark, motionless, airless — it will change. It will not be broken; it will become unbreakable, impenetrable, irredeemable…. The only place outside Heaven where you can be perfectly safe from all the dangers of love is Hell.” Love is unbearably self-abasing. How can anyone do this? The answer is that Christ first loved us. We do not do this because it makes sense, or makes us feel good, but because it makes us like Jesus. We live in a uniquely selfish culture. This was brought home to me one Christmastime as I was innocently standing in a store and could not help but overhear a conversation between two women. A young married woman was discussing whether or not to have children with an older lady. First of all, she was sure that if she had a baby it would be a brat. And then she talked about adoption and pointed out how risky it was because with drugs and aids and fetal alcohol syndrome, you never knew what you were getting. It sounded like she was shopping. I can understand someone wanting to adopt a healthy child, I have no problem with that. We do what we are equipped to do, but what shocked me about this conversation was the total selfishness of it. It was all wrapped up in her perfect little family being an extension of her perfect little self. i wanted to get on a soapbox and yell where’s love, where’s commitment, what do we do with these kids, throw them away? It was clear she had no love because she had no Savior. when you really know Jesus you begin to do things just because he loved you and you have to love others whether it’s convenient or not.

III Love is the Perseverance in Service

in verses 8-13 Paul says that all these gifts that have to do with knowledge will pass away, 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. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears. 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. 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. And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love. They will not last, but love will. Now think about this. Paul can’t be saying that in heaven we won’t be learning, and I don’t think he’s saying that in the resurrection we will all know everything there is to be known. Rather he is saying that there is something about these gifts of knowledge that is provisional. They are temporary. The question is how temporary? Paul did not know when the Lord would return but he certainly expected it very soon. When he wrote to the Thessalonians he reflected this in Thessalonians 2:1 and 2, Concerning the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our being gathered to him, we ask you, brothers, not to become easily unsettled or alarmed by some prophecy, report or letter supposed to have come from us, saying that the day of the Lord has already come, and I Thessalonians 4:16 and 17, For the Lord himself will come down from heaven, with a loud command, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet call of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. After that, we who are still alive and are left will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air. And so we will be with the Lord forever. In other words, in Paul’s view, these gifts might well have continued until Jesus’ return in his own lifetime. But while Paul’s information was limited, the Holy Spirit speaking in Scripture is not. So the Holy Spirit anticipates that the coming of Jesus will be long delayed beyond Paul’s ability to grasp, and thus he teaches us here, not only that these special gifts of knowledge, prophecy, and tongues will be unnecessary in heaven where we will have direct access, but these special gifts will become unnecessary here below, because we will be given the New Testament whole and entire to complete God’s revelation in the Bible. In this way we will be able to understand things that the Corinthians were unable to see clearly. In the completed Bible we can behold Jesus face to face in a way that they could not before we get to heaven. The Bible is complete, the Bible is sufficient, the Bible is understandable. So the special gifts of knowledge and tongues and prophecy become less necessary as time passes, but the gift of love never changes. It’s always essential, always necessary, always abiding. We still tend to measure our contributions in terms of our special gifts and these are important as Paul says, seek the best gifts such as prophesy in 14:1. However, if we do not follow the way of self-sacrifice, of serving others, then there is nothing lasting about our contribution. Tongues, prophecy, words of knowledge, miracles were legitimate gifts in the Apostolic church, but the most withering irony in this passage is when Paul says, When I became a man, I put away childish things. Tongues, prophecy, words of knowledge and miracles characterize an infant church. Love characterizes a mature church.