Unprecedented Love
“The Value of Love”
1 Corinthians 13: 4-8a
Watch on our YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2hMALZwy7A&t=18s
Today in our series on Unprecedented Love, I’d like to talk about building our lives on the value of love, which might be considered the most valuable of all the values listed in the Bible.
How valuable is love? Consider our overall verse for these three series: 1 Corinthians 13:13.
“And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Corinthians 13:13 NKJV)
Consider the value of faith. The Bible says that without faith we’ll never be able to please God (Hebrews 11:6). As for hope, it is said that a person can live about forty days without food, three days without water, and only a few minutes without air, but only a single second without hope.
Yet as valuable as faith and hope are, love trumps them both in God’s eyes.
Here is a rhetorical question. If you are shipwrecked, floating on the ocean with your friend in a rubber raft, and all you have are a set of flares, enough food for a week, and 5 gallons of water, and you can’t make it to land without throwing one of those things overboard, what do you throw overboard? If your first thought was your friend, then I’m really glad you’re here this morning, because this is a message for you.
A lawyer, an expert in the Law of Moses, asked Jesus, “Which is the greatest commandment in the law?” He was essentially asking Jesus what the single most important thing in life in the eyes of God is.
Jesus replied, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Matthew 23:37-39 NKJV)
I think it is safe to say that love is the most important value we could be considering.
The Apostle Paul comes to this same conclusion.
“For all the law is fulfilled in one word, even in this: You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” (Galatians 5:14 NKJV)
Love is the number one value we need to build our lives on. Paul was quoting Jesus’s answer that loving one’s neighbor as ourselves is the summation of the whole law of God, and that loving one’s neighbor is just like the first of loving God with the whole of our being. In other words, loving one’s neighbor is the physical representation of showing our love for God.
Love is what God values most. Yet love is the one value we struggle with the most. In many marriages, love often goes from exciting to exhausting to expiring if we’re not careful.
So, how do we build a love for God and others that will last? Well, the first thing we have to do is look at what love is.
Love is one of the most misunderstood words. We can say we love our spouse and then say the same thing about pepperoni pizza. Now, I hope we all know there’s a difference between the two. While both might give us heartburn, they’re not the same.
Our problem is that in the English language there is no way to tell the difference. We use the word love for many different things. Betty wrote the following love letter to Ben.
“Dearest Ben, no words could ever express the great unhappiness I felt since breaking our engagement. Please say that you’ll take me back. No one could ever take your place in my heart, so please forgive me. I love you, Betty – P.S. Congratulations on winning the state lottery”
Something seems to be missing from the translation, not to mention the meaning.
Many popular misconceptions about love come from Hollywood, and many love stories fail miserably at describing real love.
Hollywood has romanticized, plasticized, and sanitized what love really is. As children, we grow up thinking we’re either Snow White or Prince Charming. Many girls grow up believing they’ll marry Prince Charming, only to end up with Grumpy.
So, I think it’s safe to say that people hold some Misconceptions about love.
One misconception is that Love is a Feeling. We see love as an emotional and sentimental feeling, but it is much more than that. It goes much deeper.
Another misconception is that Love is Uncontrollable. We say that when somebody’s in love, their head is spinning, they’re giddy, or weak in the knees. It sounds more like they’re seasick than in love! We say people in love do the craziest things, as if that’s a good thing. We also say people fall in love, as if love is like walking down the street and falling into a ditch.
But what does God say love is?
Love is a Choice
This means love is controllable. Jesus commands that we love one another. Jesus didn’t command us to feel a certain way about them but to love. Maybe we can better understand this by remembering that we can’t command a feeling the same way we can’t command a baby to stop crying.
But God commands us to love; that is, to make a choice. This is clearly spelled out in the Apostle Paul’s letter to the Colossian Church.
“And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity.” (Colossians 3:14 NIV)
The phrase “put on” means getting dressed. We consciously put on what we’re wearing. We don’t fall into the closet and come out dressed, and while some of us may look like that is what happened, it doesn’t happen that way. We choose what we’re going to wear. So, love is a choice. We put on love.
Love is a Conduct
Love is all about how we act or conduct ourselves toward others.
The Apostle John says, “Let us stop merely saying we love each other; let us truly show it by our actions.” (1 John 3:18 NLT)
We don’t just tell others we love them; we also show it by our actions.
The Greeks had four main words for love: “Philo,” “Eros,” “Stergo,” and “Agape.”
Agape, unconditional love, describes the love God has for us, and John is saying we are to have that same unconditional love for one another.
It is where we can love someone even when we don’t particularly like what they’re doing. How can we do that? It’s by looking at how love acts toward others.
There is a picture of this kind of love in the Bible. It is found in what is commonly called the love chapter, 1 Corinthians chapter 13.
“Love suffers long and is kind; love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up; does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil; does not rejoice in iniquity, but rejoices in the truth; bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” (1 Corinthians 13:4-8a NKJV)
This is a list of how love acts, and as such tells us how we are to act in our love for one another. Now, we looked at each of these individually when we looked at the Quality of Love. But, for the sake of time, I’d like to break this up into five main components.
“Love suffers long.” (1 Corinthians 13:4 NKJV)
In other versions, it says that love is patient. This is how God begins describing love. This means love takes time to grow and mature, and that we’ll never stop growing in our love for others. So we need to be patient and endure the messiness that comes with relationships, because relationships are messy.
In Greek, this word for patience is made up of two words, “long,” or “slow,” and “anger” or “wrath.” This is why I think the translators of the King James used “Suffers long.” That is, love is slow to anger.
A woman was grocery shopping with her little three-year-old daughter riding in the grocery cart. As they passed the candy aisle, the little girl wanted some, but her mother said no, and she started to cry. The mother said, “Don’t be upset, Janey. I know you don’t like shopping, but we only have a few more aisles to go.”
The next aisle was the toys, and the little girl asked for a toy. The mother again told her no, and the little girl started to throw a tantrum. Again, the mother said, “Don’t be upset, Janey. Please try to be calm. There’s only one aisle left to go.”
When they finally got to the checkout stand, the little girl saw all the goodies they had put out as impulse items, and she wanted a little plastic toy. But the mother told her no again, and the little girl started crying and throwing a tantrum. And again, the mother said, “Janey, we’ll be finished in less than five minutes, just hang in there, and you can go home and have a lovely nap.”
A man hearing the whole ordeal came up to the mother and said, “Excuse me, but I seem to have been in the same aisles as you and heard you speak to your daughter, and I can’t help admiring your patience with little Janey.”
The mother replied, “Oh no, you’ve got it wrong. My daughter’s name is Alison; I’m Janey.”
In his letter to the Ephesian Church, Paul explains how this patient love acts.
“Be humble and gentle. Be patient with each other, making allowance for each other’s faults because of your love.” (Ephesians 4:2 NLT)
Patience means making allowances for another person’s faults because of our love for them.
We struggle with patient love because it takes a lifetime to master. This, however, is the type of love God has for us. God is patient and waits for us to change and let go of the sin that has gripped our hearts and minds. So God patiently waits, and while He waits, He empowers us to be patient with others.
“Love suffers long and is kind.” (1 Corinthians 13:4 NKJV)
Kindness is caring for someone in the practical and small details of life. It is taking the wedding vows and turning them into washing dishes and taking out the trash, even if it isn’t our turn. It is taking the great hope we have when our children are born and translating it into changing dirty diapers. Through acts of kindness, we can change a person’s life.
Kindness in Greek is “crestos,” which is just one letter different from the Greek word for Christ, or “Cristos.” What I find interesting is that in the early church, people often confused these two when they saw the kindness Christians and the church exhibited.
This is what we should be known for. Therefore, Kindness is Love in Action.
In his letter to the Ephesians, Paul gives us an outline of how kindness operates
“And be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God in Christ forgave you.” (Ephesians 4:32 NKJV)
To be kind to one another means caring about others and forgiving them as God has forgiven us. So kindness means acting toward others as God acts toward us.
“Love does not envy; love does not parade itself, is not puffed up.” (1 Corinthians 13:4b NKJV)
This is all about security and insecurity. If we are secure in our love, we don’t have to envy what others have or boast about what we have. Security matters in any relationship, because even the slightest insecurity can tear it apart.
This is why God is so clear about our security in His love once we enter into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ.
In the letter to the Roman Church, Paul says, “For I am persuaded that neither death nor life, nor angels nor principalities nor powers, nor things present nor things to come, nor height nor depth, nor any other created thing, shall be able to separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” (Romans 8:38-39 NKJV)
Now, there are several things that contribute to insecurity in our relationships. These include secrecy, inconsistency, disconnection, or disagreement.
Maybe right now we are thinking about who or what it may have been. But when we say we love someone, then show it by speaking the truth in love, and through an act of kindness, and that is, forgiving them.
And while this is a scary step, but, we need to act out of love and no longer live in fear. Fear chains us, while love changes us. Love lets us become all that God created us to be. So, love isn’t showy; rather, it’s genuine care for others.
“(Love) does not behave rudely, does not seek its own, is not provoked, thinks no evil.” (1 Corinthians 13:5 NKJV)
Several thoughts here!
Therefore, love changes how we use our words, how we make our plans, and keeps our stinky attitudes from taking over what we do.
Now, there’s a little bit of fear in that. We fear that if we risk ourselves by selflessly loving another person, they might not return that love, or they might not love us the same way. But it isn’t about what the other person does or doesn’t do; it’s all about what we do.
If we’re truly going to be like Christ, then we must realize that while He unconditionally and selflessly loved us, we have never loved Him or others in the same way, but that didn’t stop Him from loving us.
So, if we are to love God with the whole of we are, and then love others as ourselves, we don’t need to fear the consequences; instead, we should love others as God has loved us.
** Love Doesn’t Rejoice in Iniquity, but Rejoices in the Truth – To expand without going into a full sermon on sin and truth, if we rejoice when we or others sin, this isn’t love; it’s giving permission, or, as we say in counseling sessions, it’s being an enabler, which isn’t love.
And rejoicing in the truth is that love tells the truth, even if it hurts, which is why the Bible tells us to speak the truth in Love.
“(Love) bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never fails.” (1 Corinthians 13:7-8a NKJV)
Love doesn’t quit, and that’s because love is a commitment.
Now, some may say, “Sounds great, but that’s impossible to accomplish because the power to love like that isn’t within us.” And they’re right.
When Jesus said to love the Lord God with the whole of our being and then to love others as ourselves, He knew that the second without the first is impossible. The only way we can love others, and for that love to endure, is found in a loving relationship with God. And so, loving God is where the power to love others comes from.
Knowing that God loves us unconditionally will give us the strength we need to love others the same way.
Paul tells us about the reward for hanging in there. “And let us not grow weary while doing good, for in due season we shall reap if we do not lose heart.” (Galatians 6:9 NKJV)
Don’t quit; be patient and kind to others. Loving others isn’t easy, but in the end, we will receive a great reward. The greatest act of love we can give another person is to tell them of God’s love for them.
Conclusion
This week, go tell someone of God’s love for them. And even though you’ve told them before, tell it again; don’t grow weary, don’t lose heart, because in the end we’ll reap a great harvest.
And again, one of the most loving things we can do is to tell the truth about what God’s word says regarding a situation or a person’s life. It may not sit well and may get us in hot water, but if we truly love others, we will share the truth with them lovingly rather than with feel-good spiritual phrases. In other words, instead of enabling them, we need to truly love them by speaking the truth, but speaking it in love.
To build up the House of God within us, which is the whole basis of our vision for discipleship here at Living Waters Fellowship, we need to cultivate within us the value of love, loving God with all of our heart, soul, mind, and strength, and loving our neighbor as ourselves, or, as I like to say, loving others the way we want to be loved, and that is with the way God loves us.
