The Grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, The Love of God, and The Fellowship of the Holy Spirit be with you all. Amen.

1 Corinthians 12:31 “But earnestly desire the greater gifts. And yet, I am going to show you a far better way. 13:1 If I speak with the tongues of mankind and of angels, but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 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 do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give away all my possessions to charity, and if I surrender my body so that I may glory, but do not have love, it does me no good. 4 Love is patient, love is kind, it is not jealous; love does not brag, it is not arrogant. 5 It does not act disgracefully, it does not seek its own benefit; it is not provoked, does not keep an account of a wrong suffered, 6 it does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth; 7 it keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never fails; but if there are gifts of prophecy, they will be done away with; if there are tongues, they will cease; if there is knowledge, it will be done away with. 9 For we know in part and prophesy in part; 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will be done away with. 11 When I was a child, I used to speak like a child, think like a child, reason like a child; when I became a man, I did away with childish things. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known. 13 But now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (NASB)

13 But now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love. ” (1 Cor 13:13). It’s not just we preachers who are always looking for illustrations of love. Every poet, author, playwright, song writer, and musician devotes a good portion of their time, talent, and energy to treating the subject of love or the absence thereof. Not all treatments of love are the same. A lot of them are superficial; some are movingly sacrificial. But it seems that Christians and non-Christians alike love St. Paul’s treatment of the topic of love in 1 Corinthians 13, which is often called St. Paul “Love Chapter.”

People inside and outside of the church think that Paul’s “Love Chapter” is about marriage. But that wasn’t what Paul was talking about when he was given to write it. The truth is, 1st and 2nd Corinthians, including 1 Corinthians 13 was written to the most dysfunctional, divided, and loveless congregation in the New Testament: the Corinthian congregation. They were a congregation full of sexual immorality, division, arguing, and lawsuits against one another. Their divisions manifested themselves at the dinner table and worst of all in their participation in the Lord’s Supper.

They were a people that had forgotten what it meant to be loved by Christ and to love on another. After spending 12 chapters addressing specific problems that had arisen in the congregation, Paul teaches them what true love is. He wrote in verse 1, “I am going to show you a far better way.” Some translations say “a more excellent way.”

“Faith, hope, and love remain..; but the greatest of these is love. ” Back to the basics. The word “love” in Koine Greek, the type of Greek of the New Testament uses four different words to describes four didn’t kinds of love. Love like everything else in this world comes in different qualities and applies to different kinds of relationships.

First, the Greeks had a word, στοργή, Storge for love of favorite or familiar things. For example, I love good chocolate ice cream. I love sleeping in my own bed after a trip.

Second, the word, φιλία, Philia means a trust and loyalty among friends. This is also known as brotherly love-the city of brotherly love– Philadelphia.

Third, ἔρως, eros meant romantic love and the kind of love that a husband and wife are to have for each other over the course of time. In the Greek eros does not carry with it the unseemly connotation that it does in our day.

Aristotle taught the happiness not love is the highest goal of human existence because happiness is complete. It does not need anything else. Human love on the other hand, he noted is incomplete. It seeks something in return.

The lower three forms of love are based on feelings, needs, and wants. They look for something in exchange for something. The first στοργή, is characterized by feelings of comfort or safety. φιλία is mutual respect and common interests. ἔρως expresses itself when a man wants a woman and a woman wants the man who wants her.

The fourth kind of love in the Greek is ἀγάπη, Agape – This as you know is unconditional love. It is the kind of love that God has for us. This is the word that is used in 1 Corinthians chapter 13, and throughout the New Testament in regard to God’s love. It is the highest form of love.

When our Jesus said, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all thy soul and with all thy mind” (Matthew 22:37) and “Love your neighbor as yourself” (Matthew 22:39), He used this word, ἀγάπη. In 1 John 4:8, when St. John wrote “God is love,” he was literally saying, “God is ἀγάπη.”

ἀγάπη is a love that seeks no reward. It is purely and only interested in the welfare of the other. There is no quid pro quo.

13:1 If I speak with the tongues [that is a reference to the ability to speak in multiple languages as most Europeans do today] . . . but do not have love, I have become a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 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 do not have love, I am nothing. 3 And if I give away all my possessions to charity, and if I surrender my body so that I may glory, but do not have love, it does me no good.”

The Corinthians were more concerned with external appearances of church life than with forgiveness. Some boasted of their gifts, others of their tongues, and others of their knowledge; yet all these things will pass away.

Paul is saying here in a more complete way the same thing James says in 2:26; “For just as the body without the spirit is dead, so also faith without works is dead.” True real Christian faith produces works. It’s in its nature. So also true, real Christian faith produces love. Luther is helpful here. Faith looks upward to and takes hold of God and love looks to the side to serve our neighbor. ἀγάπη simply does what’s good for the neighbor without expectation of anything in return.

Having treated the negative side of the issue, namely without love we are nothing, we have no value, Paul was given to paint for us a portrait of what agape love looks like in practice.

Love is patient, kind, not jealous; doesn’t brag, and not arrogant. It doesn’t act disgracefully, seek its own benefit; is not provoked, doesn’t keep track of a wrong suffered, and doesn’t rejoice in unrighteousness. Agape rejoices with the truth, keeps every confidence, it believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things and never fails.

To say that 1 Corinthians 13 sets a high bar is an understatement. No one, no matter how temperate or how hard we try, we cannot and do not meet the standard. Would any one here say they actually practice this kind of love? A love that doesn’t keep track of a wrong suffered? A love that keeps every confidence? A love that never fails to keep its promises? A love never allows a thought of self interest and any amount of bragging?

Paul is giving us of list of Godly love, the Love that is Christ Jesus and what it does.

*Jesus touches a man with leprosy—and restores him to his family and his place in the community.

*He gives sight to a man who’s never seen his world.

*He raises a young man from death and gives him back to his widowed mother.

*Jesus tells another rich young man that the hard truth he needs to hear.

*He calls to a man up in a tree who’s an outcast from society—and then goes to be a guest in his home.

*He forgives a woman who everyone knows has sinned much.

*Jesus weeps over dead man then brings Him back to live.

Jesus promises paradise to a criminal dying a just but agonizing death.

*He takes everyone’s sin and death upon Himself and is forsaken by His Father so that we will live forever.

John 3:16, 16 “For God loved the world in this way, that He gave His only Son, so that everyone who believes in Him will not perish, but have eternal life.”

It was on that cross where He, Who is love incarnate bore all things and endured all things. 1 John 3:16, “By this we know what love is, that he laid down his life for us, and we ought to lay down our lives for the brothers.” (ESV)

Jesus did not insist on His own way. “Not My will but Thy will be done.” He did not keep track of the wrongs He suffered. “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

We can never measure up to the standard set before us in chapter 13 because only exists apart from sin. Agape can only been seen in the person and work of Jesus Christ. We are a poor reflection, if not a distortion of Christ like love.

The Lutheran Service Book has a hymn. It’s number 430. It’s title is “My Son is Love Unknown.” The first stanza includes this lyric. “My song is love unknown, My Savior’s love to me, Love to the loveless shown That they might lovely be.”

God did not love us because we were lovely creature–love to the loveless. Rather He loved us because He is love and has made us to be lovely in His sight. 1 John 4:16, “We have come to know and have believed the love which God has for us. God is love, and the one who remains in love remains in God, and God remains in him.”

Christ taught, “Greater love has no one than this, that a person will lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) This is what Christ did for His friends and His enemies. “For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life.” (Romans 5:10)

Folks, there are four different Greek words for love, and there are all kinds of English synonyms for the word “love” because we can’t and don’t love as we ought to. The fall into sin destroyed our ability to love purely and wholly. True and pure love, godly love was lost in the same way that holiness, righteousness, and innocence the image of God was lost. God like love had to be impute to us, just like holiness, righteousness, and innocence had to be assigned to us.

1 John 4:7-10 “Beloved, let’s love one another; for love is from God, and everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God. . . because God is love. 9 By this the love of God was revealed in us, that God has sent His only Son into the world so that we may live through Him. 10 In this is love, not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son to be the propitiation for our sins.”

If we had perfect love, Christ like love there would be no need for the forgiveness of sins. Perfect love for God and for one another does not allow sin. Perfect love is the result of sinlessness. Christ had no sin, committed no sin, was Himself perfect love.

Christ’s love endures forever. All other forms of love will pass away. In the last two verse of chapter 13, Paul teaches us that of the three great Christian virtues only love remains forever. 12 “For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face; now I know in part, but then I will know fully, just as I also have been fully known. 13 But now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

Faith and hope will pass away. Faith is trust in things that are unseen. One day we will see Christ face-to-face that’s why faith has a shelf life. It lasts as long as you do in this sinful world. Hope is the same. Hope is tied to the future, to the promises that have been given to us about what is to come. Hope too last as long as you do in this veil of tears.

“Now faith, hope, and love remain, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” That is what most people misunderstand about this sentence. Love is superior because the other two have a shelf life. John 13:35 “By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another.”

AMEN

May the peace that surpasses all understanding keep your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen

Fourth Sunday in Epiphany, 2022 – The Greatest is Love

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *