RADICAL LOVE - The Greatest of These - 1 Corinthians 13:1-13 - March 15, 2020
Prayer
INTRODUCTION
Love is patient.
Love is kind.
It does not envy. It does not boast. It is not proud.
It does not dishonor others. 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.
Love never fails.
1 Corinthians 13:4-8a
They will know you are my disciples by your love.
“If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have 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 do not have love, I am nothing. If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonor others, 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.
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 completeness comes, what is in part 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 the ways of childhood behind me. For now we see only a 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.”
1 Corinthians 13:1-13 NIV
The importance of words
Greatest - from the root mega
A. The temporary nature of important things
1. Prophecies
2. Tongues
3. Knowledge
B. The temporary becomes irrelevant when the permanent arrives
1. Knowledge and prophesy have an expiration date.
2. Maturity leaves childhood behind.
3. A picture is not the person.
4. Partial is not total.
“Since you call on a Father who judges each person’s work impartially, live out your time as foreigners here in reverent fear. For you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. He was chosen before the creation of the world, but was revealed in these last times for your sake. Through him you believe in God, who raised him from the dead and glorified him, and so your faith and hope are in God.”
1 Peter 1:17-21 NIV
I. FAITH
“Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see.”
Hebrews 11:1 NIV
A. Trust, belief
Illustration of boy in house fire
B. The object of our faith is God.
C. The assurance of our faith is Christ.
“There are bridges all the way”
A young girl, unaccustomed to traveling, was taking a train ride through the country, and it happened that in the course of the day her train was obliged to cross two branches of a river and several wide streams. The water seen in advance always awakened doubts and fears in the child. She did not understand how it could safely be crossed. As they drew near the river, however, a bridge appeared, and furnished a way over. Two or three times the experience was repeated, and finally the child leaned back with a long breath of relief and confidence.
“Somebody has put bridges for us all the way!”
II. HOPE
“But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect,”
1 Peter 3:15 NIV
A. A way of living in faith
The Dying Boy
The school system in a large city had a program to help children keep up with their school work during stays in the city’s hospitals. One day a teacher who was assigned to the program received a routine call asking her to visit a particular child. She took the child’s name and room number and talked briefly with the child’s regular class teacher. “We’re studying nouns and adverbs in his class now,” the regular teacher said, “and I’d be grateful if you could help him understand them so he doesn’t fall too far behind.”
The hospital program teacher went to see the boy that afternoon. No one had mentioned to her that the boy had been badly burned and was in great pain. Upset at the sight of the boy, she stammered as she told him, “I’ve been sent by your school to help you with nouns and adverbs.” When she left she felt she hadn’t accomplished much. But the next day, a nurse asked her, “What did you do to that boy?” The teacher felt she must have done something wrong and began to apologize. “No, no,” said the nurse. “You don’t know what I mean. We’ve been worried about that little boy, but ever since yesterday, his whole attitude has changed. He’s fighting back, responding to treatment. It’s as though he’s decided to live.”
Two weeks later the boy explained that he had completely given up hope until the teacher arrived. Everything changed when he came to a simple realization. He expressed it this way: “They wouldn’t send a teacher to work on nouns and adverbs with a dying boy, would they?”
Bits and Pieces, July, 1991
He believed and had faith.
B. The way we make it to tomorrow
C. The missing ingredient for so many today
D. Meaninglessness without a reason for hope
“There are no hopeless situations; there are only people who have grown hopeless about them.”
― Clare Boothe Luce (politician, first female ambassador abroad, conservative figure)
III. LOVE
A. “Living out the life of God”
“Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love. This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him. This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.
Dear friends, since God so loved us, we also ought to love one another. No one has ever seen God; but if we love one another, God lives in us and his love is made complete in us. This is how we know that we live in him and he in us: He has given us of his Spirit. And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Savior of the world. If anyone acknowledges that Jesus is the Son of God, God lives in them and they in God.
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 them. This is how love is made complete among us so that we will have confidence on the day of judgment: In this world we are like Jesus.
There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear, because fear has to do with punishment. The one who fears is not made perfect in love.
We love because he first loved us. Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen. And he has given us this command: Anyone who loves God must also love their brother and sister.”
1 John 4:7-21 NIV
1. Loving God
2. Loving Others
Caleb, my son, posted this on his Facebook account on March 13, 2020, at 8:34pm in response to the Coronavirus Pandemic.
“If you being out of work is having a downfall to your family or kids, let me know. I can't help from a monetary standpoint, but I can get some bread, lunchmeat, cereal or something on the table. Just ask, free of judgement. Send me a private message, if you'd like.”
CHALLENGE
Read 1 Corinthians 13 every day. Memorize 1 Corinthians 13:8a. When have you ceased to love? Try to demonstrate an unceasing love by working to repair that which is broken. Love God and love others.
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