The love of God

We are starting a new series on God’s great love. The Bible says in 1 John 4:8 that God is love. How wonderful that He is love and the true source of love for us and the world. Often, as human beings, it is difficult to understand God’s love, which is so great and deep.

Almost always in the New Testament, the Greek word used for love is agape. And this does not mean ordinary love, but a great and deep love that thinks of others above itself and cares deeply for others. This is the love of God, who wants to bless and help and lift us up always. We are going to begin this series with three messages from chapter 13 of 1 Corinthians. This chapter is known as the love chapter. Here, we are going to talk about the first three verses. These verses are more of an example of what love is not, even though it may seem like love. They say, “If I speak in human and angelic tongues, but have no love, I am nothing more than a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. ² If I have the gift of prophecy and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have faith so great to move mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing. ³ If I give away all I possess, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but do not have love, I gain nothing.” (NIV)

And this is very interesting because in the three different cases, what they do seems good. But God sees the motivation of the heart, and that is what counts.

Verse 1 says even if we speak with the tongues of angels, but we do not have this love, agape, we are only making noise, which counts for nothing and is not love. We don’t always have to talk about everything or have an opinion about everything. Sometimes it is love when we keep silent rather than speak. It is good to listen and care for others. James 3:8-10, says, “But no one can tame the tongue. It is an unruly evil, full of deadly poison.⁹ With our tongue we bless our Lord and Father, and with it we curse people, who are made in God’s image. ¹⁰ Out of the same mouth come blessing and cursing. My brothers, this should not be.” (NIV)

If we speak even in supernatural tongues, but we are not showing love, this speaking is worthless.

The second case in verse 2 talks about things that religious leaders normally do. They have spiritual gifts such as prophecy and knowledge and great faith to do great things. The problem is that sometimes people who do these things fall into pride and do them more for show than out of love. And even if they do these things, but they don’t do them out of love, then they are worthless, and it says that this person is nothing.

The last case in verse 3 is very interesting. This person gave everything he had and even gave his life. Yet it says that if you don’t do this out of love, you gain nothing. Everything depends on this matter of love. Everything we do must be out of the love God. I don’t know how you can give everything and not have love, but in this case you can. Maybe it was done for some kind of spiritual reward or some gain or for show, but again, if it’s not out of love, it’s worthless.

So, today we are going to end with a sacrifice that was made of true love by this agape. Look at Romans 5:7-8, which says, “⁷ It is rare for someone to die for a righteous person, though perhaps for a good person someone might dare to die. ⁸ But God proves his love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (NIV)

How wonderful that God sent Christ and that he died for all of us so that we might have forgiveness, new life, and eternal life. And he did it when we were all sinners, deserving nothing. This is true agape. Friend, God loves you very much and can help you today. And now is also the time to show this love of God, this agape, to others.