July 14, 2021
Author: Pastor Gordon Cook
July 14, 2021
“If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I
am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 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. If I give
away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not
love, I gain nothing. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or
boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it
is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrong doing, but
rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things,
hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for
prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for
knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in
part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 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. 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. So now faith, hope, and
love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Not so long ago we had an exposition of 1 Corinthians 13. This past
Sunday we touched on love in connection with Christian praying. We are
to pray for one another and when we do we put on display the greatest of
graces and I believe that is agape love. Love is the preeminent grace
for living the Christian life. Look at 1 Corinthians 13 when he compares
it with those two other graces in that trio of faith, hope and love.
Paul does that more than here; he does that in maybe three or four other
places where he brings this triplet of graces to the fore.
Faith,
hope and love; those are the three big graces, but love is the
greatest. We shouldn’t forget that love shapes the greatest
commandments: to love God, to love our neighbor. Love defines the cross,
“Herein is love,” says John. Love to the brethren is the most frequent
‘one another’ commandment given in our New Testament. Just the word
‘love’, that one commandment, and those other ‘one another’ commandments
could be subsumed under this one commandment. But the command to love
is used 11-13 times, depending upon the English translation. The NIV has
it 12 times, another one 11 and another has it 13 times; so it depends
on which translation you have. But that is considerable. At least 11,
12, 13 times we hear it from Jesus- three times in the upper room
discourse. It shouldn’t surprise us that the apostle called the apostle
of love, which is John, speaks of loving one another at least five or
six times- 1 John 3:11, 1 John 3:23, 1 John 4:7, 1 John 4:10, and 2 John
5. So no question, it is the premium grace, the pinnacle grace or the
Mt. Everest grace.
Notice in 1 Corinthians 13 when he describes
it, he doesn’t talk a lot about feelings. There might be one reference
to feelings in terms of rejoicing, but really the dominant emphasis is
upon action. You have 16 verbs all total. Love is always on the move;
love is initiating; love is looking for ways to give, ways to help and
ways to serve. No one did that better than Jesus. He put perfect love on
display. He did it by his miracles, by his preaching, and by his
praying. To love like Jesus will require taking upon ourselves
inconveniences and even sufferings. Love is costly. But it is love that
pushes us past our comfort zones; it is love that will propel us to
minister to others.
One pastor gives some of these particular
descriptions of love and you could give a hundred or a thousand or a
million more. “Love greets strangers when we feel shy. Love speaks to
our colleagues about Christ when we are timid. Love invites new
neighbors to a Bible study or to our church. Love creates a new ministry
for alcoholics. Love spends time driving a van or babysitting children
of a church family. Love invests in prayer for one another.”
We
can never love too much. We can never love God too much and we really
can’t love one another too much. Remember how Paul describes the
Thessalonians in 1 Thessalonians, he talks about them growing in love.
Then the next time he writes he said, “You are abounding in love; you
are increasing in love.” That is something we should pray for, that we
would always be increasing in love for one another.
That was one
of the reasons we gave last Lord’s Day as to why we should come to a
corporate prayer meeting. It is one of the ways we put on display the
greatest of graces, Christian love. There were three more reasons why we
should pray together: to enjoy and know the greatest person, God
Himself; to fulfill the greatest purpose in life to glorify God; to give
us opportunity to be involved in the greatest kingdom work or gospel
work.
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