Intro: In many work places the customer services are very poor. It is sometimes very difficult to get through to someone without having to call back once or twice.
Yet most of the staffs are educated and experience-but it seems like they lack something .Many Christians /churches are like that also, they mean well, but lack the key ingredient.
One of the most overused words in the world today is the word love. Everyone uses it, but no can tell its meaning.
Definition: The Hebrew and Greek words for “love” have various shades and intensities of meaning; they may be summed up in some such definition as this: Love, whether used of God or man, is an earnest and anxious desire for and an active and beneficent interest in the well-being of the one loved-(others).
But many people longed for love. It has been the one thing that has cross culture, age, race, sex, social class and believes.
The whole theme of the Bible is based on the simple word-love.
1Co_13:1-13
As the passage open, we must understand what the Apostle Paul is saying. But to understand it, we must back track to 1 Corinthians 12 in which Paul was speaking to the Corinthians’ lack of love in their use of spiritual gifts. And therefore 1 Corinthians 13, we could say defines real love.
Friends this morning I could tell you I have read 1 Corinthians 12 and 13 number of times, but it have never affected me as it does this year.
The Warning:
1. 1Co 13:1 If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am become sounding brass, or a clanging cymbal. Though I speak with the tongues of men - Though I should be able to speak all the languages which are spoken by people. To speak foreign languages was regarded then, as it is now, as a rare and valuable endowment; It is evident that among the Corinthians the power of speaking a foreign language was regarded as a signally valuable endowment; and there can be no doubt that some of the leaders in that church valued themselves especially on it.
2. 1Co 13:2 And if I have the gift of prophecy, and know all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. And understand all mysteries - On the meaning of the word “mystery” see note, 1Co_2:7. This passage proves that it was one part of the prophetic office, as referred to here, to be able to understand and explain the “mysteries” of religion; that is, the things that were before unknown, or unrevealed. It does not refer to the prediction of future events, but to the great and deep truths connected with religion;
3. 1Co 13:3 And if I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and if I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profiteth me nothing. And though I bestow - The Greek word used here (to break off) meant properly to break off, and distribute in small portions; to feed by morsels; and may be applicable here to distributing one’s property in small portions. Charity or alms to the poor, was usually distributed at one’s gate Luk_16:20, or in some public place. Of course, if property was distributed in this manner, many more would be benefitted than if all were given to one person. There would be many more to be thankful, and to celebrate one’s praises. This was regarded as a great virtue; and was often performed in a most ostentatious manner. It was a gratification to wealthy men who desired the praise of being benevolent, that many of the poor flocked daily to their houses to be fed; and against this desire of distinction, the Saviour directed some of his severest reproofs; see [Mat_6:1-4]. To make the case as strong as possible, Paul says that if all that a man had were dealt out in this way, in small portions, so as to benefit as many as possible, and yet were not attended “with true love toward God and toward man,” it would be all false, hollow, hypocritical, and really of no value in regard to his own salvation. It would profit nothing.
Friend’s Today this is a familiar happening our society. Many are impressionist, false pretense. Many of our leaders demonstrate such-from the politicians to some of our Pastors.
Therefore friends today I encourage us to open our spiritual eyes and listen to what the Word of God is saying.
Love:The Greatest Grace
You see my brethren at the end of the day; Paul considered love as the greatest grace of the Christian faith.
Have you and I been demonstrating this love we so talked about?
What have you done lately to show your love?
Wives what have you done to your husband and children to show love?
Husband what have you done to your wife to demonstrate love?
What have you done lately to show God that you truly love Him?
II. The Love of God.
First in the consideration of the subject of “love” comes the love of God - He who is love, and from whom all love is derived. The love of God is that part of His nature - indeed His whole nature, for “God is love” - (1Jo_4:8, 1Jo_4:16) just as truly as He is “light” (1John_1:5), “truth” (1John_1:6), and “spirit” (John_4:24). Spirit and light are expressions of His essential nature; love is the expression of His personality corresponding to His nature. God not merely loves, but is love; it is His very nature, and He imparts this nature to be the sphere in which His children dwell, for “he that abideth in love abideth in God, and God abideth in him” (1Jo_4:16). Christianity is the only religion that sets forth the Supreme Being as Love. In heathen religions He is set forth as an angry being and in constant need of appeasing.
1. Objects of God’s Love:
The object of God’s love is first and foremost His own Son, Jesus Christ (Mat_3:17; Mat_17:5; Luk_20:13; Joh_17:24). The Son shares the love of the Father in a unique sense; He is “my chosen, in whom my soul delighteth” (Isa_42:1).
There is an eternal affection between the Son and the Father - the Son is the original and eternal object of the Father’s love (John_17:24).
God Loves for the Believer
God loves the believer in His Son with a special love. Those who are united by faith and love to Jesus Christ are, in a different sense from those who are not thus united, the special objects of God’s love. Said Jesus, thou “lovedst them, even as thou lovedst me” (John_17:23). They were not on the outskirts of God’s love, but in the very center of it. “For the father himself loveth you, because ye have loved me” (Joh_16:27). Here phileō is used for love, indicating the fatherly affection of God for the believer in Christ, His Son. This is love in a more intense form than that spoken of for the world (Joh_3:16).
God Loves the World
God loves the world (Joh_3:16; compare 1Ti_2:4; 2Pe_3:9). This is a wonderful truth when we realize what a world this is - a world of sin and corruption. This was a startling truth for Nicodemus to learn, who conceived of God as loving only the Jewish nation. To him, in his narrow exclusiveism, the announcement of the fact that God loved the whole world of men was startling. God loves the world of sinners lost and ruined by the fall. Yet it is this world, “weak,” “ungodly,” “without strength,” “sinners” (Rom_5:6-8), “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph.2:1 the King James Version), and unrighteous, that God so loved that He gave His only begotten Son in order to redeem it. The genesis of man’s salvation lies in the love and mercy of God (Eph_2:4 f).
But love is more than mercy or compassion; it is active and identifies itself with its object.
The love of the heavenly Father over the return of His wandering children is beautifully set forth in the parable of the Prodigal Son (Luke 15:11). Nor should the fact be overlooked that God loves not only the whole world, but each individual in it; it is a special as well as a general love (Joh_3:16, “whosoever”; Gal_2:20, “loved me, and gave himself up for me”).
2. Manifestations of God’s Love:
God’s love is manifested by providing for the physical, mental, moral and spiritual needs of His people (Isa_48:14, Isa_48:20, Isa_48:21; Isa_62:9-12; Isa_63:3, Isa_63:12). In these Scriptures God is seen manifesting His power in behalf His people in the time of their wilderness journeying and their captivity. He led them, fed and clothed them, guided them and protected them from all their enemies. His love was again shown in feeling with His people, their sorrows and afflictions (Isa_63:9); He suffered in their affliction, their interests were His; He was not their adversary but their friend, even though it might have seemed to them as if He either had brought on them their suffering or did not care about it. Nor did He ever forget them for a moment during all their trials.
They thought He did; they said, “God hath forgotten us,” “He hath forgotten to be gracious”; but no; a mother might forget her child that she should not have compassion on it, but God would never forget His people.
How could He? Had He not graven them upon the palms of His hands (Isa_49:15 f)? Rather than His love being absent in the chastisement of His people, the chastisement itself was often a proof of the presence of the Divine love, “for whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth” (Heb_12:6-11). Loving reproof and chastisement are necessary oftentimes for growth in holiness and righteousness. Our redemption from sin is to be attributed to God’s wondrous love; “Thou hast in love to my soul delivered it from the pit of corruption; for thou hast cast all my sins behind thy back” (Isa_38:17; compare Psa_50:21; Psa_90:8). Eph_2:4 f sets forth in a wonderful way how our entire salvation springs forth from _ the mercy and love of God; “But God, being rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ,” etc. It is because of the love of the Father that we are granted a place in the heavenly kingdom (Eph_2:6-8). But the supreme manifestation of the love of God, as set forth in the Scripture, is that expressed in the gift of His only-begotten Son to die for the sins of the world (Joh_3:16; Rom_5:6-8; 1Jo_4:9 f), and through whom the sinful and sinning but repentant sons of men are taken into the family of God, and receive the adoption of sons (1Jo_3:1 f; Gal_4:4-6). From this wonderful love of God in Christ Jesus nothing in heaven or earth or hell, created or uncreated or to be created, shall be able to separate us (Rom_8:37 f).
III. The Love of Man.
1. Source of Man’s Love:
Whatever love there is in man, whether it be toward God or toward his fellowman, has its source in God - “Love is of God; and every one that loveth is begotten of God, and knoweth God. He that loveth not knoweth not God; for God is love” (1Jo_4:7 f); “We love, because he first loved us” (1Jo_4:19). Trench, in speaking of agapē, says it is a word born within the bosom of revealed religion.
Love in the heart of man is the offspring of the love of God. Only the regenerated heart can truly love as God loves; to this higher form of love the unregenerate can lay no claim (1John_4:7, 1John_4:19, 1John_4:21; 1John_2:7-11; 1John_3:10; 1John_4:11 f).
The regenerate man is able to see his fellow-man as God sees him, value him as God values him, not so much because of what he is by reason of his sin and unloveliness, but because of what, through Christ, he may become; he sees man’s intrinsic worth and possibility in Christ (2Co_5:14-17). This love is also created in the heart of man by the Holy Ghost (Rom_5:5), and is a fruit of the Spirit (Gal_5:22). It is also stimulated by the example of the Lord Jesus Christ, who, more than anyone else, manifested to the world the spirit and nature of true love (Joh_13:34; Joh_15:12; Gal_2:20; Eph_5:25-27; 1Jo_4:9 f).
2. Objects of Man’s Love:
God must be the first and supreme object of man’s love; He must be loved with all the heart, mind, soul and strength (Mat_22:37 f; Mar_12:29-34). In this last passage the exhortation to supreme love to God is connected with the doctrine of the unity of God (Deu_6:4 f) - inasmuch as the Divine Being is one and indivisible, so must our love to Him be undivided. Our love to God is shown in the keeping of His commandments (Exo_20:6; 1Jo_5:3; 2Jo_1:6). Love is here set forth as more than a mere affection or sentiment; it is something that manifests itself, not only in obedience to known Divine commands, but also in a protecting and defense of them, and a seeking to know more and more of the will of God in order to express love for God in further obedience (compare Deu_10:12). Those who love God will hate evil and all forms of worldliness, as expressed in the avoidance of the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life (Psa_97:10; 1Jo_2:15-17). Whatever there may be in his surroundings that would draw the soul away from God and righteousness, that the child of God will avoid. Christ, being God, also claims the first place in our affections. He is to be chosen before father or mother, parent, or child, brother or sister, or friend (Mat_10:35-38; Luk_14:26). The word “hate” in these passages does not mean to hate in the sense in which we use the word today. It is used in the sense in which Jacob is said to have “hated” Leah (Gen_29:31), that is, he loved her less than Rachel; “He loved also Rachel more than Leah” (Gen_29:30). To love Christ supremely is the test of true discipleship (Luk_14:26), and is an unfailing mark of the elect (1Pe_1:8). We prove that we are really God’s children by thus loving His Son (Joh_8:42). Absence of such love means, finally, eternal separation (1Co_16:22).
Man must love his fellow-man also. Love for the brotherhood is a natural consequence of the love of the fatherhood; for “In this the children of God are manifest, and the children of the devil: whosoever doeth not righteousness is not of God, neither he that loveth not his brother” (1John_3:10).
For a man to say “I love God” and yet hate his fellowman is to brand himself as “a liar” (1John_4:20);
“He that loveth not his brother whom he hath seen, cannot love God whom he hath not seen” (1John_4:20); he that loveth God will love his brother also (1John_4:21).
Friends this morning I like to shock your thoughts by showing you this.
Many of us think we must love others as our selves, right? Wrong! This was right according to the law (Mat_22:39), but we are no longer under the law, but under grace thus Christ said: “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another” (John_13:34)
“Love worketh no ill to his neighbor: love therefore is the fulfillment of the law”; “for he that loveth his neighbor hath fulfilled the law” (Romans_13:8, Romans_13:10).
Nor should it be overlooked that our Lord commanded His children to love their enemies, those who spoke evil of them, and despitefully used them (Mat_5:43-48). They were not to render evil for evil, but contrariwise, blessing. The love of the disciple of Christ must manifest itself in supplying the necessities, not of our friends only (1Jo_3:16-18), but also of our enemies (Rom_12:20 f).
Our love should be “without hypocrisy” (Rom_12:9); there should be no pretense about it; it should not be a thing of mere word or tongue, but a real experience manifesting itself in deed and truth (1Jo_3:18).
True love will find its expression in service to man: “Through love be servants one to another” (Gal_5:13). What more wonderful illustration can be found of ministering love than that set forth by our Lord in the ministry of foot-washing as found in John 13? Love bears the infirmities of the weak, does not please itself, but seeks the welfare of others (Rom_15:1-3; Phi_2:21; Gal_6:2; 1Co_10:24); it surrenders things which may be innocent in themselves but which nevertheless may become a stumbling-block to others (Rom_14:15, Rom_14:21); it gladly forgives injuries (Eph_4:32), and gives the place of honor to another (Rom_12:10). What, then, is more vital than to possess such love? It is the fulfillment of the royal law (James_2:8), and is to be put above everything else (Col_3:14); it is the binder that holds all the other graces of the Christian life in place (Col_3:14); by the possession of such love we know that we have passed from death unto life (1Jo_3:14), and it is the supreme test of our abiding in God and God in us (1John_4:12, 1John_4:16).
