08 Sep God is LOVE

1 Corinthians 13:1-8

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² 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. ³ If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. ⁴ Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶ it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. ⁸ Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away.

Do you know that non-Christians have their favourite Bible verses? 1 Corinthians 13 is one of the top two Bible verses non-Christians love. They love to recite this passage at a wedding ceremony. They might not believe in the God of the Bible, but they love what the Bible says about love. Why? The idea that love never ends, that there is something that can endure anything, something that never fails no matter what happens, is something that every human heart craves. We all want a love that is permanent. We all want a love that quiets storms, conquers challenges, defeats enemies, and is loyal to the end. There are many things in life we can live without, but love is not one of them. A theologian of our culture puts it this way. “As long as you love me, we could be starving, we could be homeless, we could be broke, as long as you love me.” The theologian’s name is Justin Bieber. Love is that essential element of life that if we have it everything becomes beautiful, but if we don’t have it everything else becomes unimportant. If we have it, life is meaningful. If we don’t have it, life is bland. But here is the problem with the kind of love our hearts desire. We long for it but it is impossible to grab. But the very impossibility of love draws us back to it. It does not matter how many times we have been let down, our hearts cannot stop craving for a love that never ends.

Today we are in our seventh sermon of our series, “God is”. And the premise of this series is that when we know who God is, we know how to live rightly. “Knowing God, living right.” Today we are talking about love, God is love. Don’t get the order mix-up. The Bible tells us that God is love, but our culture turns it to love is God. They are not the same thing. Love is an attribute of God. Love is what oozes out of God. But love is not God. That means if we make love the ultimate thing and chase after it, we will never get it. But if we have God, we have love because God is love. And this is important. It tells us something crucial about Christians. Listen. The possession of genuine Christian love is the mark of a true Christian. If we do not have love, we are not Christians. The absence of love in our lives means the absence of God.

Let me give you the context of this passage first. Whenever we hear 1 Corinthians 13 recited at a wedding, some people would say, “Aww… that’s so sweet.” But that’s not what Paul had in mind when he wrote it. This text is not about marriage but about a local church. And this is not a sweet text. This is a frightening text as it exposes the failures of the church in Corinth. In chapter 12, Paul talks about the importance of spiritual gifts in the church. Every Christian has a gift. No one is without a gift. And Paul says that every church member must exercise their gifts for the good of others. But what happened is many church members have a wrong view of their gifts. They are obsessed with their gifts and see their gifts as a sign of spiritual maturity. Then there are others who feel superior because of their gifts. They are convinced that if you have this or that particular gift, you are more loved by God. So, instead of using their gifts for the common good, they boast about them. In chapter 14, Paul zooms in specifically on the gift of speaking in tongue. Some people elevated the gift of tongue above other gifts and began to abuse it. Paul responds by telling them that the gift of tongue is good, but it is not more important than other spiritual gifts. It is just one of the gifts that God gave. So that’s chapters 12 and 14. Sandwiched between these two chapters is chapter 13, the love chapter. The point Paul is trying to make in this chapter is not to make us go “Aww” but to make us go “Ouch.” Because Paul is telling the church in Corinth that they are missing the point. Yes, spiritual gifts are important, but the purpose of those gifts is for them to love one another. Without love, all spiritual gifts are worthless. They mean nothing. Love stands supreme above all other gifts. Are you with me? So, what is love? Let me give you my definition of love. Love is the overflow of our happiness in God that joyfully seeks the good of others.

So, let’s get into the text. I have three points for this sermon: the danger of being gifted; the deceitfulness of a moral life; the description of a life of love.

The danger of being gifted

1 Corinthians 13:1-2 – If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. ² 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.

This text is extremely sobering. Paul is giving us a strong warning. This is the warning. We can be extremely gifted and do not have love. Verse 1. “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.” Let me put it in our everyday language. We can speak in tongue every morning and night. We can speak to Archangel Gabriel in the morning and Lucifer at night. We can memorize scripture and quote scripture to all our friends. We can write blogs telling everyone about Jesus. We can post pictures of our morning devotions on our Instagram story with the caption, “Spending time with Jesus while everyone still sleeps.” We can share the gospel with all our friends at Uni or work. But if we don’t have love, we are just a noisy noise. To make my point, I was thinking of having a cymbal on the stage, and keep hitting them as I preach. “Clang… clang… clang…” Until you say, “Shut up. Stop hitting that cymbal. It is annoying. I can’t stand it.” But I figured you might move to another church next week if I do that. But you get the point. A cymbal is good, but we can’t play a song with just a cymbal. A cymbal on its own is just a noise. It’s like playing a piano with only one note. It has no harmony or melody.

Then Paul continues in verse 2. “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.” Translation: We can have the power to tell others what will happen tomorrow, and it happens. We can know all the mysteries of the Bible; why God chose A and not B, why the good God allows suffering and pain, and how God can be three but one. We can pray for someone who has a terminal illness, and that person is immediately healed. We can go to a funeral, look at a corpse in a coffin, command him back to life, and he comes alive. We can do all the supernatural mighty works of God, but if we don’t have love, it is worthless. Paul says, “I am nothing.” Notice that Paul includes himself on the list. Paul is by far the most gifted of all apostles. God used him to write 2/3 of the New Testament. He is extremely brilliant. But Paul says he is nothing in God’s sight if everything he does is not driven by love. He does not say the gifts are nothing, but he says he is nothing. In other words, Paul is saying, “I don’t care how gifted you are, I don’t care how many people are impressed by your ministry, I don’t care how much influence you have, without love, you are nothing. You can be a great leader, you can be an awesome pastor, you can be a famous miracle worker, and you are not a Christian at all because you have no love.”

Now, listen. If you think that’s only a problem with the church in Corinth and we are not affected by it, you cannot be more wrong. Get this. The biggest problem in the church today is not the lack of spiritual gifts but the absence of love. And without love, everything we do amounts to nothing. This is a strong warning to us. It means that God could have used us mightily and we are not Christians. It is possible to have the gifts of the Spirit without experiencing the grace of the Spirit. It is possible to do many things for God and never love God. Do you remember what Jesus says in Matthew 7? Jesus says there are people who heal the sick, cast out demons, and prophesy in Jesus’ name, yet at the end of their lives, Jesus says to them, “Depart from me. I never knew you.” This is extremely sobering. Don’t miss the point. Possessing and exercising spiritual gifts say absolutely nothing about a Christian. We need to be extremely careful of becoming professional Christians. Do you know what I mean by that? What’s being a professional? Being a professional is, “I don’t care what you are in your private world. I don’t care how you are in your personal life. I don’t care who you are in your innermost heart. What matters is you perform, and you deliver.” All the emphasis is on performing and productiveness. And this happens in the church all the time. One of the greatest dangers in the life of a local church is when we value gifts over characters. We mistake talents for characters and gifts for grace. We assume that because someone is talented and gifted, he or she must have been walking with God.

Let me give you a personal example. I grew up in church, meaning I knew how to look and behave like a Christian without being a Christian. And that was my story. In my teenage years, I was actively serving in the church. I was a Sunday school teacher. I did the overhead projector. I was in the choir. I was one of the ET leaders. I even played banners. If you don’t know what that is, don’t worry you are not missing anything. I also learned to play acoustic guitar when I was fifteen. Not because I want to be able to worship God with a guitar but because that’s how you became popular with girls in those days. And I was also blessed with a not-so-bad voice. So, people around me encouraged me to use my gifts and I began to lead worship. And because I grew up in church, I knew the kind of music people liked and how to make them jump up and down during the fast song and shed tears during the slow song. I was very good at it. And many people would tell me how blessed they were when I led worship. So, I had an influence. I had a platform. And everyone assumed I was walking with God because I was good at what I did. And I started to think, “God is using me. People are blessed by what I do. Therefore, I must be walking with God.” But was I? The truth is I did not love God. I was struggling with lust. I was living a double life. I was using my gifts to hide the real me. Underneath all the talents and gifts, I was joyless. I craved human praise. I was empty. And it was only a matter of time before I was exposed. Can you see what happened? We constantly mistake talents and gifts for characters and grace. However, the evidence of walking with God is not gifts but love. To mistake gifts for characters is a spiritual poison. So, the question is not how gifted we are. The question is, can we see the evidence of love in us? Are we growing in our characters? It is possible to do, do, do, and be nothing. Be careful of the danger of being gifted.

The deceitfulness of a moral life

1 Corinthians 13:3 – If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.

If you think Paul was harsh before, wait till you hear this. Paul is giving us an even stronger warning. This is the warning. We can be extremely good, we can be extremely moral and gain nothing. This is very scary. Because it means we can sell all our possessions and give them to the poor. Sounds very biblical right? In fact, if we do that, people will talk about us. We might be headlines in the local newspaper. Oprah might invite us to her show. And people would say, “Look at that person. Now that’s somebody. That’s a genuine Christian.” We can serve at church from morning to night every Sunday. We can sacrifice ourselves for the sake of others. We can even die as a martyr for Christ. But if we do not have love, we gain nothing. Do you see? It is very possible to make spectacular sacrifices without love. And at the end of the day, those sacrifices we make amount to zero.

So, if the first warning is about being gifted, the second warning is about being good. Because some people would say, “Yes, the gift does not matter. What matters is being a good person. What matters is how you live your life.” And Paul says no to both. Because it is very possible to be very virtuous and do it for self-gain. It is possible to make many sacrifices and do it for selfish reasons. We don’t do it because of love, we do it because we are trying to build our self-worth through it. Maybe we do good because we try to gain God’s favour. Maybe we want to prove ourselves. Maybe it’s the way we show we are better than others. Maybe we want to feel needed and significant. At the end of the day, all the sacrifices we make are all about us. And Paul is telling us not to mistake being good with a heart transformed by grace. We must ask ourselves, “What is my motivation for doing good? Why did I do what I do?” If we do good in order to count, if we do it to say, “Now I know I’m a good person. Now I know God will love me. Now people will think highly of me”, it’s all about us. We don’t love others; we love ourselves. Do you see? Listen. It’s possible to look very loving on the outside and have no love on the inside. Everything we do is about us. It’s extremely selfish. And here is the thing. People who live with us can see it. They know that even though we look sacrificial to others, we are actually selfish, manipulative, anxious, and vain. We are simply using others for our needs. And when we do so, we gain nothing. The problem is that this is how we naturally operate.

Let me give you a case study that I steal from Keller’s sermon. Think about how we teach children to be honest and not to lie. How do we do that? We appeal to two things: fear and pride. The first way is to appeal to fear. We say, “Don’t lie because you will get caught. Your parents will catch you. Your teacher will catch you. The police will catch you. And worse, God will catch you.” What are we doing? We scare them. We say, “You better not lie because your sin will find you. If you lie, there will be consequences, and you won’t like it.” That’s fear. The other thing we do is appeal to pride. We say, “Do you know why you should tell the truth? Because you don’t want to be like those awful liars. They are bad people. But not you. You are much better than them.” What are we doing? We’re trying to get the child to be truthful by getting the child to disdain a certain kind of person. “Liars are bad. You don’t want to be liars.” Now, let’s think about fear and pride. What are fear and pride? It’s self-centeredness. It’s enhancing a person’s self-centeredness. It’s teaching them to look down at certain people. It’s teaching them to think about themselves first. But if we think about it, isn’t that the problem with the world? What is wrong with the world? It’s self-centeredness. It’s the impulse of every human heart that says, “Me, me, me. Me first! What about me?” That’s self-centeredness. And instead of hammering the heart of self-centeredness, we teach people how to be good by enhancing the self-centeredness in them to keep them from doing wrong. It’s not going to work. Think about it. Why do we lie? We lie because of fear and pride. We lie when we are afraid of losing face. We lie when we fear losing power, when we are afraid of losing something important to us. Or we lie out of pride. We lie when we want to look better than others, when we think we deserve better. Do you see the problem? When we enhance fear and pride in their life to get them to tell the truth, we are actually setting them up to eventually lie.

Let’s get more personal. Why are there so many pastors who do the most ridiculous things, fall into scandal and blow their entire ministry up? Do you know why? Because they are morally committed, and they are serving people. They are giving their lives for the good of others. And very often, those goods require them to make lots of personal sacrifices. They are not making as much money. They work longer hours. They are more physically, emotionally, and mentally taxed than people in other professions. And do you know what happens deep inside them? Self-pity. They start to say, “Nobody knows what I am going through. No one understands my struggle. They don’t know how much I’ve sacrificed. They don’t know my pain.” The next thing they know, there’s an opportunity for cutting a corner here, taking some money there, having an affair over here. They say, “I deserve this.” Where does that come from? It comes from self-pity. It comes from self-centredness. It comes from what’s happening inside the heart even though they are being so good on the outside. Paul says it’s absolutely deadly. Can you see the deceitfulness of a moral life? It is very possible to be extremely good but doing it all out of an inner emptiness instead of an inner joy.

Let’s apply it to the context of our church. I am grateful for our church. I’m grateful that every week our service is centred on the Bible. We want robust theology and solid doctrine in this church. I’m grateful that many of us not only come to church but also serve God with our gifts. I’m grateful that we have a praise and worship team that exalts Jesus, and we sing out loud with them. I’m grateful that our church proclaims the gospel weekly from this pulpit. I’m grateful that many of us give one of our weeknights to be planted in MC and have fellowship with one another. It’s an absolute joy for me to witness all that. But here is the warning. Do you know that we can do all that and gain nothing? If we don’t do what we do out of love, we are nothing in God’s eyes. Without love, everything we do gains nothing. We are nothing without love. Paul is not saying that all our gifts and everything we do is nothing. But unless it is love that drives the use of our gifts and our doings, it is worthless. Can you see why this passage is very frightening? So next time you are at a wedding, and somebody reads 1 Corinthians 13 and someone sitting around you says, “Isn’t that beautiful?” You say, “No it is not. You don’t know what it is saying. It is awful. It’s a big problem.” Let’s move on to the next point.

The description of a life of love

1 Corinthians 13:4-7 – ⁴ Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant ⁵ or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; ⁶ it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. ⁷ Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Paul lists out 15 descriptions of love. What is interesting about this list is that this is the list of all the things the Corinthians are not. It is the list of what is wrong with them. Throughout 1 Corinthians, Paul uses all these descriptions to highlight the problem with the church in Corinth. In other words, this is Paul’s direct rebuke for a lack of love in Corinth. So, here is what I want us to do. I will list all 15 descriptions of love and give a brief explanation of each. As I do that, I want you to substitute the word love for your name and see if that description is true of you. And I want you to count your score. Let’s see what you get out of 15. Are you ready?

Love is patient – It does not mean patiently waiting for the love of your life, but endurance in the face of suffering. It is being patient toward those who do not love you without seeking retaliation.

Love is kind – It means you actively seek to do good toward others, including people that you don’t like.

Love does not envy – You do not desire what other people have, and you rejoice in other people’s blessings.

Love does not boast – You do not brag about what you have and make others jealous of what you have.

Love is not arrogant – You know that everything you have is a gift. You are not puffed up to think that everything is about you.

Love is not rude – You are not pushy or demanding. You are considerate toward others and do not say things to shame others, even if they are wrong.

Love does not insist on its own way – You are okay with being second and elevating other people’s preferences before your own.

Love is not irritable – You are not easily triggered. You are not a ticking bomb waiting to explode with anger at any given chance.

Love is not resentful – You do not keep score. You keep no records of wrong. What happened last week does not make its way to today.

Love does not rejoice at wrongdoing – You do not enjoy seeing others fail, including people that you don’t like and your enemy.

Love rejoices with the truth – You look for opportunities to affirm others who have done well. You are not afraid to speak the truth into other’s life, even though you know it’s going to be uncomfortable and make them upset.

Love bears all things – You never tire of supporting others, even in the worst circumstances.

Love believes all things – You never assume the worst and always give people the benefit of the doubt until all facts are known.

Love hopes all things – You always look for the best in people and are quick to give second chances. You do not lose hope for people to repent of their sins and change for the better.

Love endures all things – You persevere to the end and do not quit halfway in the way you love others.

How are we doing? Does anyone get a perfect score? Let me see your hand. Let’s see how many Jesuses we have in this church. Does anyone get zero? Do not let me see your hand. Does anyone feel good about their score? If you do, you are not doing it right. This list is supposed to make us realise how bad we are at loving one another. Let me say two things about love based on this list. The description of love that Paul gives us consists of verbs. It tells us that love involves decisions and actions. We can say we love someone a million times, but if we never do anything for that person, it is a lie. Love always involves doing. However, action alone is not enough. How many of you have heard the statement, “Love is not a feeling; it is a commitment”? I understand what this statement tries to convey. In our culture today, too many people easily give up on love because of feelings. They no longer feel the love they once had and give up on their marriage due to lack of feeling. And this statement conveys the truth that even when we don’t feel like it, we still choose to love. I get that. But I don’t think that’s enough. Love is a commitment, but it is more than just a commitment. Love is not only an action, but love is also an affection. The descriptions Paul gives not only convey action but also emotion. Love does not envy, it is not irritable, love rejoices in truth, love hopes etc. While love is surely more than feeling, it is not less than feeling. To love we need both action and affection. So, love not only requires us to do the right thing but also to feel the right way. Love without action is a lie and love without affection is empty.

And pay attention to what Paul says next. 1 Corinthians 13:8 – Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. This is massive. Paul says there will come a day when all the spiritual gifts are no longer needed. Prophecies are great but they won’t last forever. Speaking in tongue is awesome but they will come to an end. But not love. Love never ends. There will never be a day when we do not need love. Love will continue for eternity. Love stands supreme above all gifts. That is why our hearts long for love. More than anything in the world, we want to love and be loved. Do you know what are the two biggest questions of our hearts? It doesn’t matter who we are, it doesn’t matter how happy our marriage is, it doesn’t matter if we are single, our hearts ask these two questions all the time. Will you still love me tomorrow? And do you still love me in all my weaknesses?

Our hearts are crying out, “I want you to say that you love me. And once you come to know me in all my weaknesses, I still want you to love me. Then I want you to say that you love me again. And then I want you to prove it. Prove that you are not going anywhere. Prove that you will stay with me until death separates us. And then I want you to promise me that you will never stop loving me.” That’s the cry of our hearts. We want to be loved like this, and we want to love like this. The problem is we want it, but we can’t get it, and we can’t give it. So, we are stuck in the cycle of a game of love where our longing for love is never satisfied. Why? Because we have made a fatal mistake. What is that mistake? We think that love is something that originates from within us. We have located love within ourselves. We have viewed love as something we do, an emotion we feel, an experience we have. But the truth is, we are empty. We need that love as much as we want to give that love. No wonder we are frustrated. No wonder we are disappointed. No wonder we give up.

But here is what I want you to consider. What if love does not come from within us? What if love comes from outside of us? What if love is not something that we do first and foremost, but something that happens to us? Do you know why Paul lists out love as a set of verbs? What he does is he is personifying love. Paul is giving us a radical definition of love. Love is never about what we get but what we give. Jonathan Edwards put it this way. “Love is putting your happiness in the happiness of the other one.” In other words, listen. When we love others, it is never about us and our happiness; it is about them and their happiness. This is why our culture has no concept of real love. Our culture tells us that love is about self-happiness and self-fulfilment. We try to love someone in order to be happy. And if we are not happy, we quit. But real love is putting our happiness in the other person’s happiness. Their joy is our joy. Their delight is our delight. Their smile is our smile. And here is the bad news: There is nothing we can do to produce this kind of love inside of us. Not in a million years. It does not matter how hard we try, we cannot produce real love on our own. Do you know why? Because love is not a set of guidelines we must follow. Love is a power that takes hold of us. We cannot conjure love on our own. Love must come into us, or we will never be able to do it. We learn to love by being loved. That’s the bad news.

Here is the good news. We can receive love and pass it along. It means that for us to love others for who they are, we first need to be loved for who we are. For us to put our happiness in the happiness of others, we first need someone to put their happiness in us. Because real love only develops when we meet real love. It does not happen through trying but through receiving. Before love is something we do, love is something we receive. The more we are loved, the more we can reflect that love. That is why when Paul tells us what love is, he personifies love. He says, “Love is.” Paul is not simply giving us a set of verbs; Paul is giving us a person. Paul gives us the ultimate example of love. There is only one name we can substitute for the word love and this description is completely true. That name is Jesus Christ. That is why the Bible defines love this way. 1 John 4:10 – In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be propitiation for our sins.

Think about Jesus. Jesus does not need anything from us. The reason Jesus loves us is not that he wants something from us. Jesus loves us for us. Jesus puts his happiness in our happiness. He fits all the descriptions of love.
No one suffers a long time with patience like Jesus. At the cross, Jesus suffered to the point he cried out, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” Jesus experienced infinite suffering out of love for us.
No one keeps no records of wrongs like Jesus. When the soldiers and the people mocked Jesus at the cross, Jesus replied, “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they do.”
No one is always patient and always hopeful like Jesus. Even at his moment of death, he still said to one of the criminals beside him, “Today, you will be with me in paradise.”
No one perseveres in love like Jesus. At the cross, he cried out, “It is finished.” It means that his work is completed. Jesus refused to die until he completed his task. And what is his task? To accomplish our salvation. Jesus came to take the punishment of sin that we deserve and gave us the righteousness that is his. And he refused to die until he had done what he came to do. Jesus persevered in love to the very end.
And no one can love with unending love like Jesus. Jesus promised, “I will never leave you nor forsake you.” Jesus loves us from before time began. And he will continue to love us when time is no more. His love is forever.
This is how Jesus loves us. Jesus took hell for us so that we might receive his love. Do you see? Our longing for love that never ends, our longing for love that endures tomorrow, our longing for love that sees all our weaknesses and stays, they are all answered in the person of Jesus Christ. Get this. The death of Christ tells us that God knows how bad we are, and he still loves us. And the resurrection of Christ tells us that God’s love for us will never end because he defeated death. Love killed death.

Let me close with this. Do you know what happens to us if we experience this death-defeating love? We no longer need to live with fear and pride. It humbles us out of our self-centredness. Now we are free to love others. To love others is always risky. Always. We know that on this side of eternity, no one can love perfectly. We will continue to struggle with sin. That means we will be disappointed. We will get hurt. We will experience betrayal. We will get let down. But we choose to love anyway. Why? Because that’s how we are loved in Jesus. The gospel has changed the fundamental of our hearts. We know that we are deeply flawed but deeply loved at the same time. We have all the love we need in Jesus. So, we no longer love people for our sake, but we love them for their sake. We can risk loving others, and we are not afraid of getting hurt because we already have the perfect love of Christ. If we see Jesus loving us with love that never ends, it enables us to do the same for others. Knowing the love of God for us produces the love of God in us. Love is the overflow of our happiness in God that joyfully seeks the good of others. Let’s pray.

Discussion questions:

1. What struck you the most from the sermon?
2. Explain the danger of becoming a professional Christian. Can you see this danger in your life? Give examples.
3. Why is living a good moral life not enough?
4. Look at the 15 descriptions of love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. Which one stands out the most for you and why?
5. How does the gospel enable you to live a life of love?