Making Foundational Choices: Money vs. Life
We’re constantly making choices, from the mundane to the monumental. But some choices are truly foundational, giving meaning to everything else. The speaker recalls a childhood game, asking his brother, “Do you want your money or your life?” The obvious answer is life, as money holds no value without it. This simple game highlights a profound truth: certain things are so precious that without them, all else loses purpose.

However, we often see people making tragic choices: prioritizing drugs over life, money over dignity and family, or wasting time on “doom scrolling” instead of learning and growing. Today’s discussion centers on something equally foundational as life itself: love. In 1 Corinthians 13, Paul emphasizes that even our most spiritual actions and wonderful gifts mean nothing without it.

Understanding Love in Context: Beyond Romance
Many are familiar with 1 Corinthians 13 from Christian weddings, but Paul wasn’t just offering a beautiful sentiment for newlyweds. Given the flow of his letters, discussing spiritual gifts and unity before, and worship after, this chapter on love is primarily understood within the context of the church. While it might disappoint those seeking a sermon on romantic love, this broader perspective is crucial because love is foundational for everyone, leading to diverse concepts and ideals of what love truly means.

The passage is structured to emphasize the necessity, nature, and permanence of love. It’s framed by the command to earnestly desire spiritual gifts, yet points to something higher: love, which is presented as greater than faith and hope. Paul compares love’s superiority to spiritual gifts like tongues, prophecy, and knowledge, and the core of the chapter (verses 4–7) details what love does and does not do, focusing on our love for others.

The Necessity of Love: Why It’s Not Optional
Love isn’t optional; it’s foundational. While God gives diverse gifts to build the church, love is the ultimate goal and aim of all gifts. Gifts showcase God’s power, but love finds joy in relationships and community. Paul uses first-person hypotheticals (e.g., “If I can preach like Charles Spurgeon, but without love, I’m nothing”) to stress this necessity. Even if one possesses immense faith, knowledge, or performs miracles, without love, it is all in vain.

The first danger is treasuring other things above love, like worldly achievements or ministry success, causing love to fade. Without love, our actions, even in church, won’t lead people to God because God is love. If our gifts or talents don’t manifest God’s love, they reveal nothing of Him. This is why Jesus warned that many who perform great deeds in His name will be told, “I never knew you.” We must guard against sacrificing love for success, convenience, or recognition.

The second danger is cultural narratives that downplay love, viewing it as an illusion or merely biology. Tragically, some haven’t experienced love, or have been deeply hurt and given up on it. C.S. Lewis wisely noted, “To love at all is to be vulnerable. Love anything and your heart will be wrung and possibly broken.” Loving is indeed hard, requiring us to be vulnerable, expecting to be hurt, sometimes unintentionally. These hurts shouldn’t lead us to reject love or isolate ourselves. Biblical love enables forgiveness and helps us to love better amidst misunderstandings.

The Nature of Love: Active and Truth-Centered
Love is not self-centered but active and truth-centered. Paul describes love with 15 verbs, emphasizing what love does (e.g., “love acts patiently” rather than “love is patient”). This highlights that love is not a static quality but a lived-out, ongoing, habitual behavior with visible manifestations. It’s about actions, not just feelings.

Love is patient, meaning it acts patiently towards others, even those who irritate us. It is kind, actively showing compassion and mercy, reflecting God’s patience and kindness towards sinners. Love does not envy, boast, or act proudly, countering the Corinthian church’s issues with jealousy and social divides. Boasting and loving cannot coexist, as boasting elevates oneself while love focuses on the community’s good. Love also does not dishonor others or seek its own self-interest; instead, it proactively pursues the welfare of others, a principle exemplified by Christ Himself.

Love is not easily angered and keeps no record of wrongs. Our anger often stems from a bruised ego or seeking our own interests. Just as God doesn’t count our sins against us, love demands that we don’t keep score of others’ wrongdoings but wait for God’s justice. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth, meaning we don’t gloat over others’ failures but genuinely rejoice in their growth in holiness and righteousness.

Finally, love always protects, always trusts, always hopes, and always perseveres. “Always protects” implies not giving in to what makes loving difficult and enduring the strain. “Always perseveres” means not giving up, even in prolonged challenging situations. This resilience comes from trusting and hoping in Christ, not solely in the beloved, knowing God will work things out when we obey His call to love, even our enemies. This biblical love is profoundly different from the world’s concept, and it highlights how challenging true love is.

The Path to True Love: Repentance and the Gospel
Many in the world believe love means accepting one’s sin, an indulgence that caters to weaknesses. But biblical love dares to tell the truth; it doesn’t pamper sin but helps us fight it. The world’s “consumer love” stays when it’s easy and walks away when hard, whereas Christian love persists even in difficulty, as Jesus challenged: “If you love those who love you, what credit is that to you? Even sinners do that.” A loving church isn’t conflict-free; it’s one that grows in love despite conflicts, continuously maturing in Christlikeness.

So, how do we love in this profound way when we realize our own impatience, unkindness, and pride? The answer isn’t just “trying harder” but “repenting deeper, clinging to Christ’s love for us.” Only the cross makes this love possible. Timothy Keller’s quote is key: “The religious only repent of their sins… But Christians who understand the gospel also repent of their self-righteousness, of trusting in their goodness and moral efforts.” Repenting of sin exposes our failures and fills us with gratitude for God’s undeserved love. Repenting of self-righteousness means acknowledging that our offenses against others are not greater than our sins against God, curbing our anger and pride.

Self-righteousness is a major barrier to love, focusing on self rather than others. It makes us defend our actions, justify our tone, and highlight others’ faults to protect our self-image, turning disagreements into “a war of self-justification.” This is the opposite of love: keeping records of wrongs, getting easily angered, and rejoicing in being proven right instead of the truth. When things get difficult, many distance themselves, leading to a superficial “consumer love.” But the gospel reminds us that we are justified by grace, not performance, freeing us to win hearts, not arguments, and enabling us to choose love over being right.

The Permanence and Supremacy of Love
Paul emphasizes that while spiritual gifts like prophecy and tongues are temporary and belong to this age, love will remain forever. These gifts, however wonderful, will cease when completeness comes, meaning in the new heavens and new earth, where perfect communication and communion with God will make them redundant. Our current knowledge and prophecy are partial, like childhood behaviors we outgrow. Love, however, is the bridge between our current Christian living and the future kingdom.

N.T. Wright beautifully summarizes this permanence: “Love is not our duty, it is our destiny.” It is the language of the new creation, and our lives on Earth are the only place to learn this challenging language. Despite the difficulty, we are called to practice it now, because we will live in it for eternity. Our love today, though imperfect, is perfected in the age to come, delighting in loving all in God’s presence.

Finally, love is supreme, greater than faith and hope. While faith and hope benefit us personally, love is poured out for the benefit of others. God Himself is love, and His love makes our faith and hope possible. The world’s view of love, often fleeting like fireworks or hoped to last a lifetime, pales in comparison to the Christian perspective. We know the true source of love is God, who conquered death through His Son, allowing us to enjoy the fullness of His eternal love in the new creation.

Applying Love: Public and Private Life
Love must manifest in both our private and public lives. Some may appear loving in public (e.g., at work) but neglect their closest family members. Others may be loving only to their inner circle, showing unkindness or dishonor outside of it. True love is not selective; it’s who we are becoming in Christ. If we love selectively, it means we haven’t fully understood love’s necessity and our eternal destiny, or allowed the gospel to transform us completely.

We are called to choose love over gifts, comfort, recognition, and self. This requires repenting of both our lack of love and our self-righteousness. By humbly seeking the Holy Spirit’s help, reminded of God’s love through Christ, we can exercise the freedom secured on the cross and be empowered to live lovingly in all areas of our lives, no matter how hard it gets. May God help us to grow more and more in this transformative, Christlike love.

[AI-generated notes based on this sermon]