Love Never Fails

1 Corinthians 13:1-13

If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not 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 have not love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.

⁴ Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It is not rude, 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 perfection comes, the imperfect 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 childish ways behind me. ¹² Now we see but a poor 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.

Brothers and sisters in Christ,

We've got some familiar words before us today. 1 Corinthians 13 has become one of the most well-known chapters in the entire Bible, largely because so many couples choose to include it in their wedding services. And it's appropriate for a wedding service. It shows us love pictured in a way that all married couples can and should strive for—love in action, which is so much more than just affection. And a wedding is an example of this kind of love. In a wedding, a man and a woman come together and promise to love each other until death separates them. They make a commitment to one another to love each other as long as they both live. But I think we know how that can go after the wedding day and honeymoon end. Sure, sometimes there are marriages that are wonderful examples of the love we see here, but no matter how perfect a marriage or any earthly relationship appears to be, they all have one thing in common: sin. And, because of that one thing, they don't perfectly demonstrate the love described here. But, still, we see one truth very clearly in the middle of this chapter: Love never fails. This is a truth that right now we know in part, but then we will know it fully.

One thing that we know about love right now is the way that it gives value to everything else. We get a picture of that in the first few verses of the chapter. “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not 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 have not love, I am nothing. ³ If I give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.” A lot of times when people read through this chapter they get so focused on the description of love that they forget what comes before and after. These aren't just isolated statements about love. In chapters 12 and 14 of 1 Corinthians, Paul talks about spiritual gifts. Chapter 13 comes in the middle of that thought as a reminder of things to keep in mind as the Corinthians use these spiritual gifts in their congregation. So what Paul is saying here is that love is what gives these gifts their value. In other words, even the most remarkable spiritual gifts are worthless without love. For example, no matter how clearly you can speak the truths of God's Word, no one's gonna want to listen to you if you're rude or condescending and don't show them love as you speak to them. It's worthless without love. Paul gives the example of donating to the poor. If you give everything you have to the poor, people might look at you and think that you're a great person, but unless that giving is motivated by the love that results from God's grace, it's not gonna do you any good in the end. We can understand this. Without love, whatever gifts we have are worthless. But, on the other hand, when spiritual gifts are used with love to the glory of God and for the benefit of others, we get a glimpse of just how valuable love really is.

But that value of love is something that we only experience in part right now. It becomes pretty evident that we only have a partial and imperfect knowledge of what it means to show love when we look at Paul's description of love in the next verses. “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. ⁵ It is not rude, 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.” It can be pretty convicting for us to read through these verses. If we're honest, we've gotta say that we're not always patient. We are proud. We are self-seeking. We do keep a record of wrongs. And we do fail. As sinful human beings, we only know in part what it's like to show this kind of love.

But that's why Jesus is so important to us. Whereas this section of scripture is not always a perfect description of you or me, it does perfectly describe Jesus. He is patient. He's patient enough to suffer and die for people who sin against him every day of their lives. He wasn't self-seeking or proud. Instead of focusing on his own needs and desires, he focused on ours. He humbled himself to save us. And he doesn't keep a record of wrongs. Instead, he took the record of wrongs upon himself and paid the price in full. In fact, this very same phrase that we translate as not keeping a record of wrongs is the phrase that's used a number of times in scripture to talk about how God pardons us because of what Jesus did. In Paul's next letter to the Corinthians he would write, “God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting men’s sins against them.” This is the love that Jesus shows to us. To put it another way, Jesus' love never fails.

You see, Jesus perfectly exhibits all the characteristics of love that Paul describes in these verses. And Jesus' love for us is what gives us the ability to show this love in our lives too. The Bible says that we love because he first loved us. Even though we're not perfect yet, even though we still struggle with sin, we're now able to show this love in our relationships to a certain extent. Christ's patience enables you to be patient with our kids. Christ's humility shows a husband how to love his wife. And Jesus' forgiveness gives us the power to forgive those who wrong us. We love because he first loved us.

While our love may be imperfect now, the time is gonna come when our relationships won't be tainted with sin, when we get to experience perfect love fully. Paul talks about that in the next few verses: “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 perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.” As Paul wraps up this chapter about spiritual gifts, he makes it clear that love not only is the most valuable gift of all right now, but that it always will be. The gifts that we have and cherish now aren't going to last forever. But love lasts forever. Most importantly, God's love for us lasts forever. God perfectly loves us now. He always has and he always will. When we get to heaven, we'll be able to perfectly love him too. And that's what we get to enjoy in heaven. Perfect love and communion with our creator as we live with him and serve him forever.

On top of our love for God being made perfect, our love for one another will also be made perfect. It's hard to even imagine what our relationships will be like in heaven. Our love for one another will never fail. There will be no more fights. There will be no more harsh disagreements and divisions—not even between Packers fans and Vikings fans or Republicans and Democrats. We'll all just be together, living as perfectly patient, kind and humble children of God. This experience of perfect love is something that we get to look forward to with certainty because God's love for us never fails.

It's probably safe to say that most of you are going to hear this chapter many more times before you get to heaven. Whether that's in your personal Bible study, in worship, at a wedding, you'll get to hear it again. When you do hear it, keep in mind that this unfailing love is a description of what God has shown to us. And now we get to show that to one another. And we get to look forward to heaven, where we'll get to see this love completely and perfectly.