1 Cor 13:1-13

The Most Excellent Way

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

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.

Love is most often described as a feeling or an emotion. H.L. Mencken said, "To be in love is merely to be in a state of perceptual anesthesia—to mistake an ordinary young woman for a goddess." Mark Twain described love this way. "Love is the irresistible desire to be irresistibly desired."

A website for teens attempted to answer the question, “Am I in Love?” and gave the following answers.

· The object of your affections makes you feel special and good about yourself.

· Nothing makes you feel as serene as when you and your partner are together.

· You are more yourself when with your partner than you are with anybody else.

Do you see the common thread through all of these descriptions of love? All of them are intensely self-centered. Each of them is chiefly concerned abut how I feel. Do I feel good? Do I feel special? Am I desirable?

If you are married, chances are good that this chapter was read at your wedding ceremony. The popularity of this chapter is not surprising since it is beautifully poetic and rich with meaning. In Christian circles, it is considered the premier chapter about love. This love chapter certainly applies to marriages, but marriage is not the only application. In fact, I am almost certain that when Paul wrote these words, he wasn’t thinking about marriage at all. In fact, he was thinking about spiritual gifts. I know it’s not very romantic to make this beautiful chapter about spiritual gifts. You would probably rather only think of it as a wedding poem, but we can’t make Scripture in our own image but we must first return to the original intent of the author.

We know this is about spiritual gifts for two main reasons. First, chapter thirteen comes between chapters 12 and 14. If you are not familiar with this section of the book you might guess I have been working out in the sun too long. Even a kindergartner knows that 13 comes between 12 and 14. My point is that chapters 12 and 14 are by far the most extensive teaching about spiritual gifts in all of the Bible. Everyone agrees with that, so it’s easy to conclude that chapter 13 is also about spiritual gifts. Why would Paul spend all of chapter 12 talking about spiritual gifts, break into a completely different subject in 13 then resume spiritual gifts in 14? Paul is known for his parenthetical thoughts but it is a stretch to say that the whole chapter is a side thought.

The second reason we can be confident chapter thirteen is about spiritual gifts is because he lists no less than five gifts in the first three verses.

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels

If I have the gift of prophecy

[If I] can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge

if I have a faith that can move mountains

If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames

In the first three verses Paul listed five separate gifts—the gift of tongues, prophecy, knowledge, faith and giving. We all know that this is the love chapter but love is addressed firmly within the topic of spiritual gifts. As I said a few weeks ago, there has been a great resurgence in the teaching and pursuit of spiritual gifts in the last fifteen years. From Saddleback to Willow Creek to Grace Church in Viroqua, almost every church is encouraging their people to identify and develop their spiritual gifts. But the believers in Corinth did not need the same encouragement to pursue spiritual gifts. Their church was filled with spiritual gifts. Their church was dripping with spiritual gifts. In fact, from the seventh verse of the first chapter, Paul said to them, “You do not lack any spiritual gift.” At one level that is a compliment. Wouldn’t you like to have the apostle Paul visit our church, and under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit tell us that we do not lack any spiritual gift? If he stood before us and said that, my response would be “Yes!” We have all of the gifts. We are working as a balanced body of Christ. We have ALL of the spiritual gifts! Wouldn’t you like to hear Paul tell us that? Actually it depends on what he said next.

In chapter three, verse one, Paul said this about the spirit-filled Christians. “Brothers, I could not address you as spiritual.” Now make sure you catch this. Paul was absolutely confident that the Corinthian church did not lack any spiritual gift. Sure, they were imbalanced toward the gift of tongues, but still they had every spiritual gift active in their church. They had the gift of apostleship, prophecy, discernment, teaching, miracles, healing, helps, administration, tongues, interpretation, evangelism, pastoring, shepherding, leadership, intercession, hospitality, giving and mercy. They had ALL of the gifts of the Spirit, but despite this spiritual activity, Paul told them, “I could not address you as spiritual.” How could they have an active practice of spiritual gifts but an absence of spiritual maturity? The essential but missing ingredient was love.

With that in mind, let’s read the first three verses again. 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. With each of these five gifts, Paul is taking them to the extreme. It’s not merely the language of men or even the spiritual gift of tongues, but Paul said, even if I speak the language of angels, even if I possess the ability to speak in an angelic tongue and converse with the invisible guardians of the Spirit world, but have not love, I am a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. In other words, in the absence of love, a sweet angelic voice sound like a teeth-gritting, headache-inducing empty noise

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. This is not just the gift of prophecy and knowledge, but a gift that can fathom ALL knowledge and mysteries. This is the type of spiritual gift where I can at will, peel back the curtain into heaven and describe all of the mysteries and wonders of the spiritual realm. And this is not the mere gift of faith, but a mountain-moving kind of faith; the kind of faith that Jesus described that could remove a mountain and toss it into the sea. This is huge, massive faith. But even with those spectacular gifts, if I lack love, I have nothing.

If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. Now here is the ultimate gift; I give every last worldly possession to the poor and finally, I give my very life to the flames of martyrdom. You cannot outdo this kind of a gift. It is impossible to increase this gift because you would have given away every last penny and your very life itself. But even with this kind of sacrifice, in the absence of love, the result is a big zero.

Let me put this into a type of mathematical formula so you can’t miss it. The gift of tongues with the addition of NO LOVE equals empty noise. Similarly, if you take each of these spiritual gifts in their perfect expression and add NO LOVE to the equation, you always end up with nothing. Mathematically, it is probably more like multiplying by zero. Two times zero equals zero and two trillion times zero still equals zero. An absence of love multiplied times any gift or even all of the gifts in maximum expression still equals absolute zero.

How may of us here this morning can speak the language of angels? How many can fathom all heavenly mysteries? When was the last time anyone here threw a mountain into the sea? I doubt any of us have given away our last penny and I know for a fact no one has surrendered their body to the flames or else you would not be sitting here! None of us have spiritual gifts in the measure that Paul described. You see, Paul is arguing from the greater to the lesser. If it is possible to have spiritual gifts in perfect measure and still have them completely negated by a lack of love, how much more do our small spiritual gifts become negated by an absence of love. Once you realize the depth of this truth it ought to send shivers down our spine, because this means that we can be very busy in the church and we can be swarming with spiritual activity and be accomplishing nothing. This means that you could double your tithe and end up with nothing. This means that I could preach a killer sermon and end up with nothing. Having spiritual gifts is not the same thing as spiritual maturity. Spiritual activity is not the same thing as spiritual maturity.

This negating effect of the absence of love can strike anyone at anytime. No one is immune. Just a few days ago week I learned of three casualties among pastors in our Wisconsin district. Two pastors from the same church resigned because there were deep, unresolved problems and an absence of love within the leadership of the church. A pastor at another church was fired because it was discovered he was living a double life. No one is immune. But the thing that scares me the most is that we are almost never aware of the negating effect of our lack of love. Have you ever heard this type of confession? A friend in the church, let’s call him Sam, says to you, “I gave $50,000 to our building fund this year, but you know what, every last dollar I gave is meaningless because I refuse to work out this conflict I am having with Joe.” You will never hear this kind of confession, and do you know why we never will? Because even if Sam is aware of the unresolved conflict between him and Joe, Sam falsely imagines that his generous gift will somehow more than make up for his lack of love. Sam is a legalist of the worst kind. Sam believes that he can heap up his good works, his spiritual gifts and his weekly tithes into a big pile and when God peers down from his throne and sees this pile of spiritual activity, he is going to be really impressed. “God, look at all my stuff! Hey God, have you added up all my giving? I know I don’t give all that much on a weekly basis, but I took a calculator and added up my lifetime of tithes and offerings and you know what God—it looks pretty impressive.” If God were to walk by and look at Sam’s pile of spiritual gifts and activity, he would touch the pile with his finger and poof—it would all be nothing. Very few people are willing to admit that they have a lack of love and fewer still recognize that this absence of love reduces all their spiritual activity to nothing.

Let’s do a little test. I want you to imagine someone in your life who is really easy to love. Maybe it’s your best friend, your mom, your dad, your husband or your wife. Think of the person who is so nice and so good to you that they are easy to love. Do you have that person in mind? Now I want you to run this person through the love filter of verses 4-5. Let’s call this person Joe. My love for Joe is patient. My love for Joe is kind. My love for Joe does not envy. My love for Joe does not boast and is not proud. My love for Joe is not rude, it is not self-seeking. My love for Joe is not easily angered and my love for Joe does not keep any record of wrongs. How did you do—pretty good? People who are basically easy to love can easily pass through this filter. Now I want you to imagine someone in your life who is most difficult to love. This person hurt you in the distant or recent past. Do you have this second person in mind? Now I want you to put this person through the same love filter. We’ll call this person Sam. My love for Sam is patient. My love for Sam is kind. My love for Sam does not envy. My love for Sam does not boast and is not proud. My love for Sam is not rude nor is it self-seeking. My love for Sam is not easily angered and my love for Sam does not keep any record of wrongs. How did you do this time?

Obviously we all have people like this who are hard to love. If we are struggling to love these people, does that mean that all of our spiritual works amount to nothing? I don’t think so, because the key phrase is that you are struggling to love them. If you are in process of earnestly working through your anger, unforgiveness and lack of love for this person, you are on the right track. Sometimes God gives us an instantaneous love for these kind of people, but generally this takes time to work through. But if you simply don’t care that you have an absence of love, then you have just multiplied your spiritual gifts and works by zero—you have nothing.

What we all need is to have a love as defined by this chapter, but that’s easier said than done, isn’t it? Where do we get this love? We certainly cannot manufacture it within us. This kind of love cannot come from within but must be given to us from without. Perhaps the best summary verse for this kind of love is 1 John 4:19. “We love because he first loved us.” There is something which must precede our love. Before we can love, God has to have loved us first. This defines Christian love in several ways. First it makes sure that it is Christian love we are talking about. Can an atheist love another person? Of course atheists can love others, just as Buddhists, Muslims, New-agers, Mormons and everyone else on the planet can potentially show love to another person. In one very real sense you don’t need Jesus Christ to show love to others. Yet here we have this verse which says we do need Christ— “We love because he first loved us.” In fact, we need for him to love us prior to any possibility of loving others. But this is no ordinary kind of love. This is a gospel love. This is an atoning sacrifice for sins love. This is love which saved us from eternal punishment. This is love which breathed the breath of life into our dry bones and enabled us to pass over from death to life. This is a love which is blood-bought, Father-glorifying, hell-defeating and grace-dripping. We love because he first loved us. Christ loved us perfectly and completely though we did nothing to deserve this love. We did not earn it. We could not buy it, but we did need it. This love is our life, it is our very breath, and when we refuse to love others with this love, we spit on the cross. When we refuse to love others with this love, it’s like mingling the blood of Christ with rotting garbage. With our lips we say we love Jesus but our actions say that the cross is worthless and devoid of power.

There are only two reasons why we do not show this love to others: either we have not been saved and therefore do not have this kind of love or else we do not understand its inherent depth and power. The love flowing from the cross to us is a massive and infinite love. I can’t possibly illustrate it with a diagram, but this is my best attempt. Some people are difficult to love because our eyes are focused on them. If we look at their anger and their problems and the fact that they have hurt or offended us, then that person is very difficult to love—impossible even. We cannot love them while we are focused on them. But when we turn around and see the love of Christ in the cross, we are empowered to love. You see, the love of Christ is not merely a source of motivation. When the Bible says we love “because he first loved us,” it is motivation to love but it is also spiritual power to love.

Rich Maurer

May 20, 2007