The Greatest Of These Is Love

1 Corinthians 13:13

Everyone knows 1 Corinthians 13. Most people know the passage from weddings. Couples love (pun intended) to have this read at their ceremonies. It speaks highly about love and the amazing things that love does.

But Christians understand that 1 Corinthians 13 has little to do with the kind of love shared between a husband and wife. St. Paul writes 1 Corinthians 13 to urge the Corinthians to live in unity with each other, and he calls upon them to use love to do it.

But that is not exactly what concerns us, today. At the end of the chapter, then, St. Paul writes, “So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” Faith and hope are important for Christians, so why is the greatest of these love?

To understand that, we need to know what the terms mean. This sermon looks through the New Testament to see how the authors use faith, hope, and love. Here’s a quick definition, but you’ll have to listen to the sermon to hear it more deeply explored.

• Faith: Trust that God’s grace is for me.

• Hope: The expectation that Jesus will return and raise us from the dead.

• Love: The act of serving each other with our words and actions.

Why is the greatest of these love? You’ll have to listen to find out.

Love Your Neighbor As Yourself

Romans 13:8-10

St. Paul writes that all of God’s law can be summed up in one sentence, “You shall love your neighbor as yourself.” While the sentence seems simple, it makes sense for us to examine each piece of it. We want to ensure that we understand what God says so we can do it.

Love

What is love? Is love the butterflies you feel when you look at your spouse? Is it the warm feeling you get when your kids fall asleep on you or when they look especially cute? Is it the feeling you have after having a great dinner with friends?

No. We think about love as an emotion, a feeling that’s separate from our actions. The Bible, however, views love as an action separate from our feelings.

When the Bible tells us that God loved the world, it doesn’t say that he had a warm feeling. It says that God sent his only son. That’s an action.

What if Jesus had only loved us in his heart and not with his actions? He ever would have gone to the cross to die for us. His love wouldn’t have mattered to us at all. We’d still be in our sins.

Love is what we do, often despite our feelings. Love is when we treat others with love even if we are angry or insulted or persecuted.

Your Neighbor

Who is our neighbor? That’s a famous question that led to Jesus telling the parable of the Good Samaritan. When we ask, “who is our neighbor?” sometimes we’re really asking, “Who do I have to love and who can I not?” Jesus’ response leads us to show love to everyone. We act as a neighbor when we do loving things for the people around us.

There’s another error, though. We can love humanity to the detriment of humans. In Bleak House, by Charles Dickens, Mrs. Jellyby spends her days on a charity in far off Africa while her kids are hungry and dirty. Sometimes it’s easier to love people who are far away than to care for our neighbor right here.

As Yourself

To love your neighbor as yourself, you must put other people’s needs before your own. That’s the opposite of what the world tells us to do, but it’s what Jesus did for us.

He did not grasp for divine glory and power while he was here. He humbled himself. He didn’t fight to protect his life. He offered it as a sacrifice for us. He didn’t call down curses on his persecutors. He forgave them from the cross. His sacrifice on the cross put our salvation before his comfort. He willingly suffered unimaginable pain so we could have life.

Jesus calls us to that kind of love.

Christians Love And Serve One Another

Romans 12:6-8

The Bible can be confusing, especially when the same author uses the same word with different meanings. For example, in the Book of Romans, Paul uses the word, “law” in several senses.

• Law: God’s rules for humanity that place us under the curse of sin.

• Law: The way the world works or a principle such as the law of gravity.

• Law: The Torah, or the five books of Moses.

In the reading from Romans 12, Paul uses another common word in a couple senses, “grace.” We typically use the word, “grace” to refer to the free gift of salvation through Christ. That’s what we mean when we say that we are saved by grace, through faith, on account of Christ.

This grace is the same for everyone. All are sinners, and all fall short of God’s glory.

Sometimes, though, Paul uses the word, “grace” to refer to something different. He frequently writes about the grace given to him for being an apostle. In Romans 12:3, he writes, “For by the grace given to me I say to everyone…” In this sense, the grace can be individualized according to God’s design.

This second kind of grace flows from the first. In other words, we only get the individualized gifts through the grace that’s common to us all.

In the reading above, St. Paul writes that we all have received gifts that differ in accordances with the grace given to us. We ought to use them for the good of his church.

God has sent us gifts, abilities, by his grace to use to love and serve each other. Check out the sermon to learn more.

Are We Pleased With Ourselves?

1 Corinthians 1:26-31

People have always been obsessed with status, both now and in ancient times. Much of St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians struggles with their own obsession with status. Paul describes several divisions in the church:

• Spiritually “strong” vs Spiritually “weak:” Some thought that their spiritual gifts, such as prophecy, made them better than other Christians. 1 Corinthians 12

• Rich vs Poor: When they had the Lord’s Supper, the rich often went first, eating and drinking everything so some couldn’t get anything. 1 Corinthians 11

• Noble vs Low: While most of the church would have been poor and lowly, some were highborn. Gaius, one of the leaders, probably had a house large enough to hold the whole congregation for worship, perhaps 100 people. 1 Corinthians 1

Paul tells them that their calling was the same despite these differences. God didn’t call the rich differently than he called the poor. He didn’t call the strong differently than the weak or the noble than the low. They were all called by the death and resurrection of Jesus.

There is no difference, then, because God doesn’t care about the things about which we care. He doesn’t see wealth or status. He just sees our sin. He calls all people to him, because all are in the same state: We need a savior. No human being should ever be pleased with their own qualities. The good we do or the status we have is nothing before God.

What’s true for Corinth is also true for us. Most of us don’t think about the rich having more access to Jesus than the poor, like the Corinthians might have. We do, however, get pleased with our own things. We think that our actions might count for something.

We could say:

• I volunteer. That must count for something.

• I read the Bible. That must count for something.

• I give to the church. That must count for something.

• I’ve been attending here for 40 years. That must count for something.

But it doesn’t. Only Jesus matters.