Full-filling Love
Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MQC3bUDoFoI
Readings: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13, Psalm 19, John 13:33-36
Who here thinks love is really important? We all long for love. We all know we need it. It is something written into our very being. Yet, the interesting thing is that most of the time we have actually simplified or belittled love. We have often simplified it to that nice warm feeling we get when we feel loved, or when we feel love for someone else. That is nice, but it is way more than that. Next, we may define love by the idea of commitment, how we stay close and faithful to one another. That is important, but it is way more than that. On a higher level, we still simplify love by defining it as our sacrificial acts to uphold one another. Again, this is good, but love is way more than that. Love is all of this and more. The love that Jesus Christ commands us to live out, is the very thing in which others will see and know Jesus and so a good act, a nice feeling, or a consistent relationship is only the beginning.
You all have probably heard this beautiful poetic passage from 1 Corinthians 13 numerous times. This passage about love comes right after Paul had just been talking about the spiritual gifts and about the unity of the body. He ends those passages in chapter 12 with “let me show you a far better way”. In this statement he is telling us that Christian love is more important than all of those Spiritual gifts - it is more important than healing, or miracles. Love is even more important than unity.
If we look at the first three verses in chapter 13, we see all of these amazing things that we would praise anyone for. If someone was an eloquent and powerful speaker, or if someone was able to speak a heavenly language - these are powerful realities, and yet what does Paul say? If I could speak like this, but I didn’t have love, I would be a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. Think about that. We might be able to speak well, speak what is needed, speak amazing truths, but without love, all of that speech is empty, hollow, and without substance. Somehow it is love that makes our words effective. It is love that transforms a word into what it can be. It is love that communicates. I have often not had the right words or known what to say, but sometimes I see love communicating far better than I can. Then when I do have the words, I have seen it is not just the words, but it is the love that is taking root in people’s hearts. We might know exactly what someone needs, we might be helping someone out of a hard time, we might want the world to be a better place, but without love, we can’t lead anyone to what they truly need.
Next, we hear about amazing power. If Paul had the gift of prophecy, the ability to look at the world and know where our choices are leading, if Paul could understand every mystery, or know the order of the world, even if he had the faith that could reshape everything all of that is not what he truly needs. Without love he is nothing. Love gives identity and purpose. It makes us who we are. It fills us and gives us substance. Just think about this. What Paul is saying is you might have the most talent in the world, or if you could entertain, or if you were strong, or if you were popular, or if you were so incredibly smart these would make you nothing more, unless you first had love. It is love that connects us to anything, it is love that embodies it, it is love that grounds us and builds us up.
Third, Paul goes to what I have often define as love. Paul looks at sacrificial action. If Paul was to give up everything he had and give it to the poor. That is an amazing act, but without love it would give him nothing. If Paul was to put his life on the line and bear incredible pain, but did not have love, it would mean nothing for him. Think about this. We can do the most sacrificial and seemingly loving things and yet if there is not truly love in the actor - there is no gain. Love is what makes our actions productive. It is what makes sacrifice powerful and meaningful. It is love that promises and delivers the future that our actions strive for.
The interesting thing is that Paul can and has done all of these things. He has spoken, he has faith, power, and wisdom. He has sacrificed again and again. Yet, he knows and has experienced that all of these things have no purpose, no substance, no fulfillment without love.
In all of these examples, we see that love must be far more than what we often limit it to. It must be way more than a feeling, a commitment, or a sacrificial action. These things help direct us, but where are they pointing. Ultimately they are pointing us to God. God is love. He is far greater than all of these things and yet it is he that gives everything meaning, substance, effectiveness. If we want to know what love is, we need to get to know God. If we want our actions to be productive, we need to act for God. If we want to find our identity and purpose, we need to find it in our creator God. Yet love, is living out God. It is the thing that must accompany everything that we are and do.
Paul starts to define this love a little more for us, but because love is so grand, because it is the very character of God, because love is the Holy Spirit in us, Paul cannot simply define it like a dictionary entry. He rather points our way. Love is patient. Patience turns those powerful words into words that can take time and slowly affect and guide the heart. Patience turns that faith, wisdom, and power into something that accompanies and uplifts others as it uplifts you. Patience turns that sacrifice into the growth of a better world and future. Patience can be very difficult, especially in our modern world, but patience is essential to love.
Love is kind. Kindness is compassion, mercy, and more. Kindness is this reaching into the heart of another to live into their true needs. Kindness is not just pleasantness, or being polite or nice, it is leading someone to God as you help them to their truest needs. Without this kindness, our action, our words, our understanding will never lead to what this world needs. Kindness now paired with patience is even harder and yet is essential to love.
Now we get a lot of what love is not. We could spend as much time on these, but let me just reshape them a little. Love is not looking at what another person has and wishing that you or someone else you know had that. Love is not forceful in holding up ourselves, our talents, our stuff, or our successes. Love does not make ourselves the centre of anything. Love does not lower others. Love does not work for itself. Love takes a long time to get angry. Love forgives and makes room for reconciliation and a restored relationship. Love struggles through any kind of evil, it never finds any joy in seeing something wrong done. Instead, love finds joy in truth, whenever someone experiences and knows God that little more, love fills us with great joy.
Remember that this is love first rooted in God, but then that this love is meant for everyone. This is not just a love for our spouse, it is not just a love for our family or friends. This is the love God planted in us, meant for every one of our neighbors. This love is greater than unity because it cannot help but create unity, it creates a family. This love is greater than every gift because it turns everything into a great gift. If this love always protects and protects everyone, then our self-protection, our relationships, and isolation will look far different. If this love always trusts and trusts everyone, then our engagement, our inclusion, our interactions will look far different. If this love always hopes and hopes in all things, then our pain, our fear, our feelings at any moment will look very different.
It is true that this kind of love opens us up to a lot of hurts, which shouldn’t surprise us because it is the love that Christ himself lived out, but as it is the love that gives anything and everything substance it is what we need. Naturally, this love perseveres through it all. This love will never fail.
As I looked at this passage that I have heard and read a hundred times, I was once again surprised by how grand and important this love is, but that is the beautiful reality of the love God is giving us: we will always be growing in love. Most things, even the very best things in this life will come and go, but the love of God always remains. Now we see the hints of it, the sign posts that direct us toward the love we long for, right now we are still getting to know the love that is inside us, but the more we live into it, the more we get closer to God, the more this love will become clear and affective, the more our love spoken and acted on will have meaning and substance. The more we love like this the more people will come to know the love of God. That is love that Jesus had commanded. AMEN
John 13:33-36
Why is Jesus’ command to love one another, sandwiched between Jesus telling them that he is leaving? Why is it important that Jesus command this love in this moment?
What does Jesus’ love look like?
Why is this love special, in a way that people will know we follow Jesus Christ?
Why will this love lead them to follow Jesus where he is going?
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
What does the line right before this passage tell us about what is coming?
Vs. 1-3 - Look at the ends of each of the first three verses. Why is love important to all of these actions? What are these things without love? What does this tell us about love?
Vs. 4 - When are some times that you feel it difficult to be patient? How could loving patience transform your everyday life or the amazing actions presented in the first three verses?
What does kindness mean to you? How can it be more than any of the acts presented in the first three verses? Is it ever hard to live out or to receive kindness?
Vs. 5 - How is pride, self-seeking, dishonour, recording wrongs and envy oppositional to love? How are they related to one another?
Why are truth and evil oppositional in this sentence? Why would love always find joy in the truth?
Vs. 7 - remember the always as it applies to each of those words. What would it look like to always do these things, in ever situation, for every person?
Vs. 8 - Have you experienced a time when it felt like love failed? Why is that? What does it mean that this special kind of love given by God with live forever?
Vs. 9-11 - What are we still waiting for completeness in?
Vs. 12 - How does love relate to knowing, being known, seeing face to face?
