This morning, we

continue our message series helping us to better understand and live out

unconditional love.

This series is

entitled, “Love Is” and it is based on that familiar passage found in

1 Corinthians chapter 13. 

We were created by

God with the need for love that can only be expressed through relationships.

As there are

different types of relationships, there are different types of love.  There is, however, a type of love that we are

to express toward anyone and everyone. 

In fact, the Bible teaches that if we learn how to express this type of

love toward God and others, that we will entirely fulfill all that God’s law

requires of us. 

This distinct type

of love is the love that God has for us. 

In the Greek language, it is the word agape.  It is this type of unconditional love that

we’ll be covering through this message series.

To be able to

possess and express this unconditional love, we’re going to break it down into

parts as Paul chose to do in his letter to the Corinthians.  He taught all about spiritual gifts and said

that it is not using these gifts that truly matters, but how we choose to use

them, our motive, that matters to God. 

We can do all sorts of good things for God, but if we do not do them as

an expression of God’s love, then they are pointless, useless, and meaningless.

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

1 If I speak in the

tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong

or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all

mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but

do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give

over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain

nothing.  14 Love is patient, love is

kind.   It does not envy, it does not

boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking,

it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight

in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts,

always hopes, always perseveres.

8 Love never fails.

But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they

will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in

part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when completeness comes, what is in part

disappears. 11 When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a

child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of

childhood behind me. 12 For now we see only a reflection as in a mirror; then

we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as

I am fully known.

13 And now these

three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

The greatest of

these is? LOVE!

THE GREATEST OF

THESE IS? LOVE!!!

That’s why the

foundational core value of New Hope is this same great, unconditional

love.  It is what will stand the test of

time, the test of tribulation, and the test of anything that can ever try to

rise up against it.

Love is unfailing.

Now just as a quick rabbit trail, this very passage of scripture is often used to teach the cessation of the gifts of the Spirit.  This passage is used to teach that the gifts of the Spirit ceased because completeness has already come in the person of Jesus or in the completion of the cannon of the Bible.

However, this letter was written somewhere between 30 and 60 AD.  Therefore, when Paul writes that “we know in part and prophesy in part” and “now we see only a reflection”, he was writing after Jesus already lived, died, and rose from the grave.

As

far as having the complete canon of the scriptures being the arrival of

completeness and even having read it completely many times over, well, there is

still sickness in need of healing, a lack of knowledge and wisdom, the future

unknown, and the need still for just about every gift of the Spirit.  In fact, this scripture that