I want you to turn your Bible’s to the New Testament Book of I Corinthians 13. Now, I’m sure that some of you are familiar with I Corinthians 13; maybe some of you even have it memorized or have parts of it memorized. This is known as the “Love Chapter of the Bible.”
But, it’s interesting to me – I was reading in Chapter 12 one day about all the wonderful Spiritual gifts. All those gifts God has given to the Body of Christ so that we might minister to others. And I thought about how great those gifts are.
Then you get down to the last verse of chapter 12, verse 31 and it says, “But covet earnestly the best gifts: and yet shew I unto you a more excellent way.”
Now, you need to know right up front that I’m just a simple fella. So, I’m thinking to myself, “If there’s a more excellent way, I want to get in THAT WAY.” Don’t you? I mean, I want what God says is excellent! So, I think I need to see what that is.
So please understand with me, that “more excellent way” is chapter 13. So, with the last verse of chapter 12, Paul will proceed to lead us into that “more excellent way” in Chapter 13.
- Now this is better than the Spiritual gifts;
- This is better than all those wonderful things found in chapter 12.
So, beginning in verse 1 – now I am going to be using the word love in place of Charity – cause that’s what it means: “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not LOVE, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal.” Now isn’t that something, he is talking here about some wonderful gifts – speaking with the tongues of men and angels – but if we’re doing it without love – we’re just making noise! The sad truth is, there’s a lot of church’s just making noise – and it ain’t even a good noise!
Verse 2, “And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge; and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, and have not LOVE, I am nothing.” LISTEN, this is a pretty big list here, but he says, if I have not love – I AM NOTHING.
Verse 3, “And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor . . .” We can be very benevolent and give to help the poor, “and though I give my body to be burned . . .” I can die a Martyr’s death, “and have not LOVE, it profiteth me nothing.” Now this is getting pretty serious ain’t it.
Verse 4, “LOVE suffereth long, and is kind; LOVE envieth not; LOVE vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up, 5 Doth not behave itself unseemly, seeketh not her own, is not easily provoked, thinketh no evil; 6 Rejoiceth not in iniquity, but rejoiceth in the truth; 7 Beareth all things, believeth all things, hopeth all things, endureth all things. 8 LOVE never faileth: but whether there be prophecies, they shall fail; whether there be tongues, they shall cease; whether there be knowledge, it shall vanish away.” Now, the older I get the more I understand that statement – if you ain’t there yet – you will be. My wife says I have a head full of useless information. Being a computer geek, I know she’d just love to defrag my brain! Just get rid of all those useless files, all those temporary files – Cause all that junk in my head is crowding out the things I need to remember!
Verse 9, “For we know in part, and we prophesy in part. 10 But when that which is perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away. 11 When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish things. 12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.”
Now notice with me verse 13. Now I have read this verse literally 100’s of times and never seen it: “And now abideth faith, hope, LOVE, these three;” Now that would have been enough – He could have stopped right there – BUT HE DIDN’T. “but the greatest of these is LOVE.”
I have read this hundreds of times and didn’t consider it. I believed it, I just didn’t consider it. So, I want to take you on a journey with this ole redneck biker theologian as we explore this question together:
JUST HOW GREAT IS LOVE?
You see Paul is not saying here that faith and hope are not great, just that LOVE is greater. As we begin this journey, the first step in the process for me is a comparative one. To understand how great LOVE is, I have to understand how great faith and hope are.
So, Let’s start with HOPE. How great is HOPE? Now, hope here is not used in the sense that we use the word today – like:
- I hope it doesn’t rain this week so I can ride the Bike to church; or
- I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow so I can pull the bike out and clean it up.
Now as Christians, our HOPE is in Him. It is not something that “might happen,” but it is something that is CERTAIN! We have a Blessed Assurance Amen!
So what is that HOPE?
We have a HOPE in a better place than this one. As Christians, we have a place that is being prepared by Christ Himself. A place with no more death, no more sickness, no more separation, a place where Jesus will wipe away all the tears from our eyes.
Listen, the Bible says, “If we hope only in this life, we are all men most miserable.” Thank God my HOPE is in Heaven.
I don’t know about you this morning, but I’m thinking HOPE is pretty great! BUT LISTEN – LOVE is Greater!
Now think about FAITH. O my, How great is FAITH?
Well, listen, I couldn’t be saved without FAITH. The Bible says we are “saved by grace THROUGH FAITH.”
The Book of Hebrews says, “Without FAITH, it is impossible to please god.”
When I began to think about how great FAITH is, I mean, WHAT I believe and WHOM I believe, how great that is, and then to know that wondrous Blessed HOPE that I have, and I thought about how great these are, yet Paul says, THESE ARE NOT AS GREAT AS LOVE.
SO, JUST HOW GREAT IS LOVE?
Well, let’s take this journey back in time, somewhere in eternity past.
- What is that you think motivated the Father to send His Only Begotten Son?
John 3:16 did not say, “For God had so much FAITH in mankind and what he would become.” It does not say, “For God had so much HOPE in this world.” It does say, “For God so loved the world . . .” What a Great Love Amen! For a Sovereign God to send His only Son to die for an ole sinner like me – what a Great Love!
- What do you think motivated the Son to come? Now, when it was time for Him to come, I don’t think they had to go looking for Jesus in Heaven.
The Father did not make Him come, He came of His own volition; He came of His own will. He came, knowing before-hand what He was going to face when He came – yet, He came anyway. This perfect, sinless Lamb of God – what motivated Him to come?
I promise you it wasn’t because of His FAITH or HOPE in Mankind!
“Greater love hath no man than this, that He would lay down his life for a friend . . .”
As great as FAITH and HOPE are, LOVE is greater. You see that’s what motivated the Father, that’s what motivated the Son.
You see, THEY loved us even when we didn’t love THEM. Romans 5:8 says, “But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.”
- You see, God loves us even when we didn’t love Him;
- He wanted us even when we didn’t want Him.
And I got to thinking some more, I thought about that passage from John the Beloved which talks about “We say we love God. But, if we don’t love our brothers – we are liars.”
Now stay with me, cause we’re headed somewhere and I want us all to arrive at the same destination.
Do you remember a conversation Jesus had with Peter? He said, “Feed my Sheep. Feed my Sheep. Feed my Lambs.” Do you notice how he connected it with people?
Church, we can’t love God the Father like we should; and we can’t love God the Son like we should, if we can’t love the people around us like we should!
Now, I am a simple guy but that is not hard for me to understand. Jesus said, “How can you love me, whom ye have not seen, when you can’t love your brother who you have seen.”
He said, “You say you love me, but you don’t love your brother – you are a liar and the truth is not in you.”
The Greatest of these is love. I think there is a whole lot more to this than we’ve ever stopped to consider.
I always say there are 3 essential elements to good Bible study – 3 questions you should always ask.
- What did it mean then?
- What does it mean now?
- What does it mean to me?
LORD, what is the lesson You want to teach me? What is it that needs to change within me?
You see, there are many today that are changing God’s Word to meet them where they are, when we’re supposed to change our lives to conform to His Word.
THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE!
Where I grew up in church, way back in the day – and I know some of you can remember those days:
- people used to dress a certain way when they came to church;
- people used to act a certain way when they came to church;
- people used to sing a certain way, and used certain instruments;
- preachers used to preach a certain way;
- preachers used to dress a certain way – black or dark blue suits, while shirt, dark tie and black penny loafer shoes – and god aweful looking white socks (That’s why I wear biker boots all the time so you can’t see my socks).
I mean, that’s just the way I grew up and served in the ministry. I loved the old hymnals and southern gospel music, even blue grass gospel. I just love it – always have and always will.
Now hang on with me, because I am getting somewhere I promise.
Listen, when Kim and I first started going to Biker churches, I got to tell you, I figured out real fast, not everybody worshiped the way I worshiped, or sang songs the way I grew up singing songs. And it was quite uncomfortable for me. In fact, it was so uncomfortable for me, Kim didn’t think I’d ever go back. I found out real fast that not everybody like the old hymnals, not everybody likes southern gospel music. Not everybody worshiped the way I worshiped. The preachers certainly didn’t look the way I thought preachers should look. And I have to be honest with you, I struggled to love them the way I should.
But, for some reason, God had Kim and I stay in that Biker church – maybe because He has a sense of humor; maybe because He wanted to teach me a lesson about love.
So, just get a picture of Kim and I now the first time we visited this particular Biker Church. We see all these people that just looked as rough as they could be; We sit down in the church and this Rock band called “Misfire” begins to play – I am thinking to myself – “Man, I can’t wait to get out of here.” Then this fellow with his sleeves cut-off comes from around that drum set, got a big ole pony tail – and he was the preacher! Then he calls the ushers forward – I think it was a guy named “Tiny” that day – a big ole mean looking fella – I put money in the plate just to keep them away from me AMEN?!!!
But, I tell you something – that day, God started teaching me some lessons. God started teaching me to love people that weren’t like me. THE GREATEST OF THESE IS LOVE!
You know what I found out going to that biker church?
- I found out there were real people with real needs;
- There were people that were broken and hurting;
- There were people that had failed God – just like I had failed God;
- There were people there that needed the same love of God that I needed.
So little by little, God taught me how to love these people that looked different than I looked; He taught me to love these people that didn’t come from the same background that I came from.
God was teaching me that “the greatest of these is love.”
I have to tell you now, I am very conservative in my beliefs – and I don’t apologize for that. However, we have got to be sure that we have compassion to go along with our conservatism. Cause greater than my Faith and Greater than my Hope is LOVE.
Brothers and sisters, You can have your theology nailed down – you can have the Bible memorized – you can quote Scripture like nobody else;
The world could care less about that. There’s an old saying that goes “People don’t care how much you know, until they know how much you care!”
So, why did he say, “Love is greater than faith and hope?” Well, one day along this journey over the past 5 years it hit me:
- When we get to Heaven – our hope will be realized;
- Our Faith will become silent;
- The only thing that’s going to continue on through eternity is LOVE!
Our love for God the Father and our love for God the Son is determined by how much we love each other!
If I want to love God more – I gotta learn to love you more! I pray that God will help me to love people more. They don’t have to believe like I believe; they don’t have to sing like I sing – but help me to love them – because if I can’t love them – I can’t love God the way I should.
I’ll tell you church, when we start loving each other like we should, maybe we’ll see less problems in our churches; if we love each other like we should – maybe churches will grow, the Kingdom of Heaven will increase and souls will be saved.
We need to stop sharing our problems with the world and start loving people.
I want to ask you, “Have you ever considered just how great love is?”
Are you loving others like you should? If you’re not, you can’t love God like you should.
Fighting for My Pea Patch 