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– 13:13PRAY
PRAY
With the mess that we have seen at Washington and Green Bay, many of us have been talking about different routes to get where we are going.
There were many different routes that could be taken to get around it, but we weren’t looking for just another route, we wanted the best route.
But we don’t limit looking for the best way to places we drive.
We ask about the best way to do things around the house or even in the church.
We want a more excellent way.
The church in Corinth was no different.
They thought the had found the most excellent way to be a Christian through the use of their spiritual gifts in the church.
Paul tells them that he is about to tell them a more excellent way.
There are so many times in my life when I would like for someone to tell me a more excellent way.
In our passage today, Paul will show us three characteristics of the more excellent way of love.
I need to tell you that the love spoken of through the entire chapter 13 is agape.
It means affection or good will or benevolence.
In other words, it is a giving kind of love.
So many times, in our day and age love, is about getting.
Agape, however is about giving.
It is about giving of yourself.
Jesus described agape best when He said, Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friend.
This love is the love that Jesus demonstrated when He died on the cross.
It is this idea of love that leads to the King James translation of charity.
It is more about giving than feeling.
1 Corinthians is a letter written by the Apostle Paul to the church he started in Corinth.
In this section of the letter, Paul is answering a question put to him by the church regarding spiritual gifts and their use in worship.
And right in the middle of his discussion regarding spiritual gifts, Paul pens this beloved chapter.
The one we usually call the love chapter.
And in it, we will look at three road signs of the more excellent way of love.
A More Excellent Way
I.
The first road sign of the more excellent way is the necessity of love.
A. We are looking for the superiority of love.
Paul tells us about it in
B. In these verses Paul tells us that love is necessary with all the spiritual gifts by saying that the spiritual gifts are meaningless without love.
Paul takes an almost mocking tone in these verses.
He is making a deep contrast between the use of gifts with love verses without love.
Let's look a little deeper.
A More Excellent Way
B. In these verses Paul tells us that love is necessary with all the spiritual gifts by saying that the spiritual gifts are meaningless without love.
Paul takes an almost mocking tone in these verses.
He is making a deep contrast between the use of gifts with love verses without love.
Let's look a little deeper.
i.
If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
The gift of tongues without love is just noise.
There is not much communication possible without love.
Would you not agree?
Think about it.
If tongues is to be used like it was in , love would be necessary.
It is a way to communicate the gospel.
And communication of the gospel must be motivated by love.
ii.
If I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge; and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
All the visible and powerful gifts that exist are nothing.
Nothing.
He didn't say they were just small or insignificant, but rather, nothing.
Not-ah.
Nill.
Without love.
Love is necessary especially in displays of God’s power.
iii.
If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
I can look like someone who is living right by doing things, but if it is not flowing from love.
There is no good that can come of it.
Paul is not saying that we should give in order to get when he says there is no gain.
Rather, he is saying there can be no gain for someone who gives with the wrong motive.
C. The point of all three of these is that the absence of love renders the gifts empty.
If someone claims they are using a spiritual gift and is not loving in it, they are not exercising the gift properly.
Remember that this love is a giving love.
To exercise a gift in an agape fashion would be to think of how that gift could benefit others.
It is not about calling attention to ourselves.
It is not about receiving anything.
The exercise of the spiritual gifts is to be used to give.
Therefore, if a gift is bringing attention to the exerciser of that gift, it is false.
It is noise, or nothing or of no profit.
The proper use of spiritual gifts is in the giving to others.
The first road sign of the more excellent way is the necessity of love.
II.
The second road sign of the more excellent way is the character of love.
A.
B. Let's look at all these terms and think about how these terms describe the giving kind of love.
A More Excellent Way
B. Let's look at all these terms and think about how these terms describe the giving kind of love.
B. Let's look at all these terms and think about how these terms describe the giving kind of love.
i. Love is patient and kind– It does not lose its cool easily.
ii.
Love does not envy or boast – it is looking to build others up and not itself.
iii.
It is not arrogant or rude – this agape love is not inwardly focussed, but outwardly focussed.
It is thinking of others first.
iv.
It does not insist on its own way – which is another way of saying it seeks for others.
It is seeking to benefit others.
v.
Is not irritable or resentful – agape love in action will not get upset, because it would hinder the giving nature of the love.
no score keeping.
This love doesn't hold past hurts against people.
vi.
Does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth.
Agape love only looks for the good and doesn't enjoy or revel in the evil.
C. In a way, the next three are giving a description of Christ.
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