Simply Love

Setting the scene

Paul's ongoing concern in 1 Corinthians is to underline the close connection that Christians should have with one another and to point out how the eagerness of the Corinthian Christians is in danger ofworking against that very principle.

In chapter 12 he explores the place of spiritual gifts in the context of being the body of Christ as the picture for the church. He finishes with a series of rhetorical questions, all of which demand the answer "no". After that he encourages the Corinthians in their eager desire to have spiritual gifts, a discussion he will pick up again in chapter 14, but for now there is a more important context for him to set for these gifts.

Paul steps aside from the debate about who has what gift, which gift is the best gift or how many gifts a person might have, to draw our attention to the lifestyle in which all gifts should operate. Notice this, love is not a gift, it’s a way of life, it is the context of life for the follower of Christ. This, for Paul, is the most excellent way of love.

Gifts without love are worthless

If I speak with the tongues of men and of angles, but do not have love, I am only a resounding going...

If you base your spirituality only on the gifts you have, then your spirituality is flawed. In Corinth it was or better or worse than anywhere else, but it was the subject of Paul's concerns. Their spirituality had become based on tongues, wisdom and knowledge. But look what it had done!

Their knowledge had lead to pride and a disregard for those who struggled over some issues. Their wisdom had produced seemingly endless arguments and quarrels over all sorts of things. Their tongues had neither edified the church nor opened the way for the unchurched to grasp the message and respond to it.

And the sad outcome of all this is that if you base your spirituality on any of these things, on this gift or that gift, this bit of knowledge or that bit of knowledge, this leader or that leader, then you are almost certainly destined to do so without love.

What is love?

RT Kendall defines the love described by Paul as:

#1 A demonstration in words

Not just any words, but Holy Spirit inspired words. As Paul lays out the essentials of love there is no room for sentimentality, there is only room for the love that lies at the heart of God. It’s his essential character.

When Paul talks of love that keeps no record of wrongs, he’s pointing us towards the grace of God. When love always protects, always hopes, always trusts, always perseveres, Paul points us to the consistency of God who is the same yesterday, today and forever. When Paul says that love never fails he points us to the eternal nature of God’s love for us: I have loved you with an everlasting love.

But words are not enough.

#2 A demonstration of works

Throughout history God has both spoken of his love and demonstrated it. Paul said that the ultimate demonstration of his love for us is seen in the sending of his Son, Jesus Christ, while we were still rebels.

Jesus lived out the love of God, and we are called as his followers to do the same.
If you live this way, this way of love demonstrated by Jesus, then you will dazzle the word. “Let your light shine before men,” not to impress them but so that they might “praise your Father in heaven.”

#3 A demonstration of wisdom

What Paul calls love, James calls wisdom. There were two important aspects to living a life that pleases God in the Old Testament.

1. Keep the covenant. Not to get God on your side, but to demonstrate your commitment to him.
2. Choose wisdom as a pattern for life. Without wisdom keeping the covenant becomes a blind act of religious obedience. It has no meaning further than rule keeping. Wisdom shapes a life to walk in the light of the covenant promises. Wisdom forces you to take responsibility.

#4 Demonstration of the will

If you wait until you feel like it, you probably won’t live a life of love that often. RT Kendall says:
We must never wait for a mood or a feeling to overwhelm us.

Our moods and feeling can mislead us. We don’t find some people easy to love. If we wait until our hearts towards them change before we love them, the truth is we may never love them. On the other hand if we chose to love them in obedience to God’s will, then maybe we’ll make room for the work of the Spirit in us as we learn to love them as Jesus has loved us.

How did Jesus love?

When Jesus spoke of love, he did not speak about something sentimental, he didn’t follow a Hollywood script. He spoke instead of the cost of love, the price that might have to be paid by those who live by the rule of love. He spoke also of love as the unmistakable mark of those who claimed to be his followers. This, he said, was how people would spot the difference. Not by the clothes you wear or the books you’ve read. Not primarily by the way you spend your money or your time, although these will be affected. Rather he said that it would the nature of our relationships with each other that would be the clearest sign of our commitment to live out the lifestyle of a follower of the one who lived for and died for others.

If you have love for one another, he said, then people will know you’ve been with me.

How did Jesus love?

#1 Unconditionally

He was known as the friend of sinners. There isn’t a single person in the whole of the gospels that Jesus encountered and didn’t love.

#2 Sacrificially

You don’t need me to remind you about the cross. A symbol of the most violent and cruellest forms of punishment ever devised by human beings. And yet the symbol of the church. The symbol of the unending love of God for the same human beings who devised its cruel use.
Is there a greater sacrifice that choosing to die for someone else? You might die for a righteous man the Bible says, but surely never for an unrighteous one. But that’s what Jesus did.
God could have wiped us out and started over again with a new universe. If he can create it, he can restart it. But he didn’t. He chose rescue over restart. He chose to pay the price of redemption rather than begin again.

#3 Courageously

Jesus believed you were worth the sacrifice. He believed you were worth all that pain and suffering, He believed it was worth his while to give you the choice of where to spend your eternity. But he left the choice to you.

#4 Bravely

Jesus loved bravely.

In Corinth there were issues, issues that needed a firm hand and clear line. But that doesn't happen outside of the context of love. The difference between self-righteous judging and discipline is surely love. When we seek to point each other towards a better way of following Jesus, towards a more godly way of making choices, then we do so in the context of love. James: If you see a brother (or sister) falling into sin, rescue them. This is “tough love”. It doesn’t shirk the responsibility to say what needs to be said, to challenge patterns of behaviour that need to be challenged.

The challenge to love

Jesus said that we were to love as he loved. Love becomes the practice of our lives. As you seek to practice the love of God, these three steps might help.

1. Put others before yourself.
2. Accept your part in his plan.
3. Be quick to applaud the success of others.

It’s remarkable to think that the creator of the universe is your greatest advocate. He’s your personal cheerleader in life. He was willing to be misunderstood, mistreated and misquoted in order to give the chance to shine for him.

When you step out to serve him, to do something in his name, to honour him, then Jesus shouts from heaven, “Way to go!” Of course if he’s more British, he’s more likely to say “Well done, nice try.” But then again, I suspect his enthusiasm for you will get the better of him and he’ll dance and sing and cheer with the best of them.

To love as Jesus loved will transform our relationships. It will transform our relationship both inside and outside the church. It will change the way we relate to each other and it will change the way we relate to the God who loved, who gave his Son for us, who came to die for us and who cheers for us in heaven.