The Most Excellent Way — Glenn Meldrum

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Love and the Spiritual Gifts

We're going to be looking at Corinthians 13. First Corinthians 13 is tucked in the middle of two chapters on the gifts and It's put in there for a reason probably the most charismatic church within the early church era was the Corinthian Church.

And so when you look at what was going on in Corinth. They were a very charismatic Pentecostal church they had the signs the wonders the miracles all those things were going on. But they weren't in right control.

They weren't under the authority of Christ is what they should have been and they were not operating in love. So he puts in between these two chapters on spiritual gifts he puts the chapter on love and Ultimately the only way that our gifts whether they are spiritual whether they are natural whether they are Ministerial or whatever direction that they might be the only way our gifts will ever fulfill what God wants them to fulfill is that they operate Through love.

I'm gonna look at love from a practical standpoint of what it is to be and how it's to be applied in Our life. I'm gonna look at it from a marital standpoint and being single. It's not a message on marriage itself, though.

I will deal with issues of marriage. Paul tells us in Corinthians 12 the 31st verse he says but eagerly desire the greater gifts and we should just in a passing point here Church. We should be desiring spiritual gifts.

We should be seeking them that God Gives gifts to us not for pride sake or ego or anything else. But that he gives us gifts so that he can be glorified to us. We should be seeking for the signs and wonders the miracles is what Corinthians 14 brings out of the nine spiritual gifts and so on.

We should be seeking them to be actively working through us and I think that we're not in a hunger place for God hungering after God if we're not actually hungering after the gifts he wants operating through us whether they are the spiritual gifts or whether ministerial gifts or or just gifts to the body of helps or whatever it might be but he wants to use this and we should be seeking those and Desiring God to impart those gifts to us.

He has divine use for you. He wants to do something through your life more than what has happened thus far. And so we should be seeking those gifts, but he says eagerly desire the greater gifts. And now I will show you the most excellent way.

Humanistic Love Versus Selfless Love

And that's what we're going to look at the most excellent way and what that most excellent way is we're gonna begin in the first verse just gonna deal with the first three verses of Corinthians 13 here and we're gonna start with the Direction.

I believe that Paul is really trying to deal with here and I'm gonna have to take what he says that I believe was relevant in his day that is relevant in our day today and Speak it in some contemporary terms that Paul did not use those terms though he dealt with some of the same dynamics as what we deal with but we're gonna look at it from Americans standard and Paul was dealing with humanistic love he was confronting the humanistic love of his day.

And so we have to look at the idea of humanistic love and what that is. Paul in these first three verses is approaching love from the negative. Not from the positive. So he brings out love in the negative because before we can have love in the positive of what love is we have to see what love is not and Until we begin to understand what love is not will not tear down what love is not.

To see put into our life or built in our life that which love is. Pagans will look at this chapter and see it one of the most lovely things that have been wrote in the world. They see it as this beautiful Statement of what love is meant to be even though they don't understand what's going on and they twist it to very humanistic dimensions.

But we have to begin by looking at the idea of humanistic love that Paul is confronting here and what do I mean by humanism, let me just give a basic definition of humanism. The Definition of humanism actually came from a philosopher from the 5th century BC.

His name was protagorius and he went and says that humanism is where man is the center in some of all things. So humanism is where man is central where it's all about me. It's all about my life what we have done with love this absolutely beautiful thing that God has given us.

We've turned it to be a self-centered self-absorbed thing that as a result becomes a destructive and harmful. And so why are we having marriages fall apart because there's humanistic love it is not an agape love.

That is operating through his people. It becomes a humanistic love that then becomes a destructive force in a marriage. Becomes a destructive force and in a family in a church or community or nation as as a whole on a whole.

But humanistic love will always be destructive. But that is what is natural. We cannot love outside of that. We have to understand that this humanistic love is a natural love that every person will have.

The Image of God and the Corruption of Natural Love

We were created in the image of God and I think this absolutely phenomenal aspect of it being created in the image of God. There is a couple of ways that we were creating his image. We were creating his image in a natural way.

Not that God has has a body like we have and arms and legs and so on. But we were created in his image to have his personality his character and have a finite reflection of his attributes. And so his attributes would be his love his mercy his kindness is his meekness and so on those particular character attributes.

He will not share with us certain attributes such as being omnipotent all-powerful or all-knowing. Omniscient or omnipresent he'll not share certain divine attributes that are his and his alone. But he will share certain other ones such as love when Adam and Eve was formed the garden.

They were given a love that was perfect. That was not humanistic. Would have been a selfless love not a self-absorbed love. But the moment sin came in this natural love that he had given us that was to be perfect now became twisted because of our sinful nature and.

So this natural love that every human being is given because we are a finite Reflection of God has now been perverted from sin. And as we give ourselves over to sin the more people give themselves as them the more perverted that love becomes.

It doesn't mean that people don't have love or that they cannot love it just becomes a destructive humanists and humanistic natural love that is not able to fulfill or Satisfy the individual or those that they are trying to express love to this American culture the 21st century has refined a humanistic man-centered selfish concept of love and the reason why they've been able to do it so effectively is because of our media if you didn't have The media the concepts of this humanistic love and all the way that it's advanced now would not be Come the norm of the way it is in our culture, but we've really advanced it through movies and TV and music and everything else.

I mean, what's the biggest subject of movies and TV and and music? What's the biggest subject of it all? It's love, but it's a humanistic man-centered love and as we go through this I hope that you begin to understand what I mean by this Humanistic love.

What Paul does is he begins to attack this love these first three verses are an attack upon it. It's not a passive thing. Paul is not having some nice sweet little statement about love. He is literally attacking some philosophical things that underpin what love in the natural is and Trying to point us to the most excellent way because we'll never come to the most excellent way till we see how low our Natural love is and if we don't do anything about the natural love that we have to see through the power of God it Transform to become this selfless love as we're going to look at in this message if we don't seek God for that to change it Will not change.

It will stay what it is natural and when it's natural it will have its destructive elements. It will be selfish it will be taking it will be abusive. It will have all kinds of twisted dimensions because that's all that sin can do to this thing that we call love.

Natural humanistic love is always selfish. We have to understand that it is always selfish now when you look at a little child. It's not selfish in an evil way. Necessarily can be but you you know a child has a love and they want to be loved and then you can see selfish dimensions of it and then as they mature it gets more selfish as it gets more abusive and in Various ways and it can become manipulative and taking and and so on and then as we get older it gets even more refined.

And it gets more corrupt as it goes on because that's all it can be. You put a child in an abusive Situation their love or expression of love becomes very abusive as a result as they mature it gets more abusive.

And so you see that in marriages you see an abusive type of natural love because love apart from the transforming work of God Is going to be selfish. We have to understand that we can't go any further with what Paul refers to here until we understand that natural Love is always selfish.

Even when we look at the pinnacle of what natural love might be in some expressions of it such as the love of a mother. There is still that which is selfish within it and apart from Christ transforming work.

It will never become like a gap a love that is selfless. Only by his grace can his love change us. And so this humanistic love is self-centered. It means that life and love is all about me that it's all about me.

It's about my personal fulfillment. Let's look at it from a marital standpoint. You have two people that are unconverted or maybe they're converted and they have never understood what it is to see their character radically Transformed and so what they do is they approach this marital situation from a selfish standpoint and in essence.

They both approach it saying I'm lonely. I'm needing meet my need and so here's husband screaming at wife meet my need satisfy me. And here's the wife say meet my need satisfy me and in their pursuit of selfishness to try and have their own needs met.

They're unable to meet the needs of each other and they're so self-absorbed in their selfish pursuit that they do nothing. But harm each other in their supposed pursuit of love. Isn't that what so much marriage is it is isn't that what it's going on in the world and even within the church?

Because unless I am transformed by the power of God I cannot do anything else other than love in a selfish manner. It is only through his transforming grace that I can begin to love in a selfless manner.

And so everything as far as this natural love is self-centered but everything in this natural love is self gratifying. So it means that everything is for me is to satisfy me. So I want my needs met. I seek somebody to love because I have this desire for love.

I have this need for love that is a God-given part of that being created in his image. I need to be loved and In my pursuit of this desire to be loved it becomes a total self gratifying thing not for the benefit of the other.

But for my own benefit you look at the whole concept of what love is today boy meets girl man meets woman that night. They're in bed with each other. It's not about love. It has nothing to do it has to do with that guy.

Wants something from that woman wants to take from that woman that woman has need within her. So she's doing what she's doing to try and satisfy a need within her. It has nothing to do with the other person because love has no part of it at all.

It is a humanistic selfish self-absorbed concept of love. But that is what our media has made is the pinnacle of it movie after movie after movie after movie after movie. Our industry is filled with it.

It's a concept of love that is all self-absorbed and it's a humanistic thing. That's all about my wants my ambitions satisfy me. But we tried to make it a noble thing, but it's not noble. It's very ugly it's a very ugly thing because it's destructive and So this humanistic natural love is self-centered is self-gratifying.

But it's also full of selfish ambition. Everything is done for me. It's done for me because it's about me and if it's all about me. It's going to be done for me my acts of love are going to be for my benefit.

Disinterested Love in Marriage and Relationships

Now I'm going to be using a term as we get on in this message and I'm going to be incorporating that this interested love God wants to bring us to a place of Disinterested love. Disinterested love is love that has no Agenda to it other than the agenda of just a love that it is not love for the benefit of myself.

But it is love for the benefit of others that it's not for my personal gratification not for my personal benefit in any way shape or form but for the sheer desire of Longing to love another or give an expression of love to another.

Now as if you begin to think of what this kind of love is, this is an agape love. This is a love of the choice not the love of emotion that says I have a need meet my need Satisfy me. It is the desire to meet the need of another whether they ever Acknowledge it or respond back.

This is an expression of what God's love has been to us a Disinterested love but it's what he calls us to that is unobtainable in the natural. It is not obtainable through anything we can do of ourself.

It is through the grace of God that he began to change us and transform us that this kind of love can be revealed through. It's a disinterested love. Imagine what that would do in a marriage if a husband began to do acts of kindness to his wife to get nothing from her.

Nothing, that would be selfish or for his own benefit just for the sheer aspect of showering upon her some affection for her. But whether she acknowledged it or knew it or understood or not that it was acts of kindness for her.

But what if the wife did this? What would happen in the marriage if husband and wife sought not to satisfy their own needs? But to satisfy the needs of their spouse what would happen to that marriage?

It could be absolutely explosive. What would happen? It could revolutionize a marriage that is mundane. It could bring tremendous healing to a marriage that's falling apart because this is a love that brings healing and health and Transformation to our lives and to our relationships to churches and ultimately as is expressed beyond the church to a perishing world.

C .s. Lewis made this interesting little point. He says there is but one good. That is God. Everything else is good when it looks to him and bad when it turns from him and The higher and mightier it is in the natural order the more demonic it will be if it rebels.

It is not out of bad mice or bad fleas you make demons. But out of bad archangels. It's not out of like you said fleas and mice that you make demons. It's out of archangels and angels that fall and the higher the more noble the thing is the when it turns away from God the more twisted and cruel it becomes.

What is one of the highest things we think of in our culture and that is the concept of Love and as it turns from God the more demonic and destructive it becomes. When it turns to him the more life and healing it becomes very powerful idea with what he's saying here.

That's why when you have a humanistic love it always brings death. Because it's always natural. It always flows out of the sinful nature. It's always filled with selfish ambition and selfish desire and and and all that which is destructive.

It does not have the ability to give life because life is not in a humanistic natural love because it's a perversion of what the real thing is. The only way that love can give life is it must be lifed in essence from God.

Life must come through God through us to bring about a Disinterested love that is for the well-being and benefit of others and as we love others rightly We will find the greatest fulfillment in loving others rightly.

You love your spouse in a disinterested way guaranteed. You'll experience love back in ways you never thought because what will happen is you become so beautifully Attractive to that spouse that they will want to shower affection back upon you.

But if we become people that just seek to be loved and in our neediness we say meet my need meet my need we will Actually become repulsive to the one that we're seeking to get the love from and do the very opposite of what we need to do.

We're not winning them. We're actually driving them away. Humanistic love is always the work of the flesh. You can look at the works of the flesh in Galatians 5 19 through 21 various expressions of the works of the flesh.

But if you look at all of those expressions the work of the flesh. They are manifestations of self-love and selfish types of love operating through them. There is no expression of a God-centered Selfless love disinterested love it is all a selfish self-absorption that flows to the people to produce the works of the flesh and the only way I can cease work producing the works of The flesh is I must allow the transforming work of God in my life to produce in me that which I cannot produce of myself.

I Cannot produce it of myself. If I could produce of myself and Jesus would not have death would have died on the cross in vain. It would have all been a waste. But because I couldn't produce it myself he died on the cross to rescue me and also to give the power of his grace to transform.

This humanistic love is also idolatrous. Because it makes man the center of it. Do we understand this natural love since it's all about me. It's all about my benefit and I all look at me and and since I become the center of it I'm not looking at God.

I'm not looking at who he is. Let me put it like this. We can make our pursuit of God humanistic. Man-centered. I'm seeking God for what I get out of him and we'll look at that in this message as it goes on a little bit.

Further, but that is a major part of it that we have this natural inclination to meet my need meet my need to God. And so our pursuit of him is all selfish. Jacob is an interesting individual of this.

You look at the prayers of Jacob in the book of Genesis and you find his prayers to be self-absorbed. Selfish prayers again and again. He says I'll serve you if you'd bless me. I'll serve you if you bless me.

I'll serve you if it bless me and then you come to his final prayer. Something had happened in the process of it and you finally find a selfless prayer. That is no longer about him. But is adoration to God.

Now that was a long journey for Jacob a very long journey. It doesn't have to be as long for us if we want to pursue that if we want the transformation of our character. It can be quicker if we will but pursue that but we have to pursue it.

We have to desire. Natural love is always limited. It can only go so far. We have to understand when we see the breakdown of marriages. It is humanistic love that's operating because man can only go so far we go so far in the relationship.

We come to the end of our strength the end of our willingness and so marriage after marriage falls apart. And I'm not just talking about in the world. I'm talking about in the church. The divorce rate in the church is higher than what is in the world.

An atheist is less prone to get a divorce than a born-again Christian is. It's absolutely disturbing. Some of the things I've seen across this country is just heartbreaking. One particular church a man and woman in the church he was a deacon on the board and You know, I thought everything was fine.

I preach at the church and then a little bit later I hear from the pastor that they separated she goes to another church. That's larger it within a month. She's on the worship team. She will not repent of the sin.

There was no fornication in it. She just says I don't want to be married to that man anymore and The pastor of that other church did nothing except there allowed it to embrace the whole divorce and everything else.

Even though it was rebellion from one end to another no church discipline. Nothing just brushed under the carpet and you know what? It became something that was absolutely grievous to God and I believe not only sin to that woman sin to that pastor and sin to that church.

That's a disturbing thought but it's all the byproduct of a humanistic love that makes it all about me. I have the right to be happy. I have the right to be satisfied. I have the right to have my needs met.

It's all about me. God if you don't satisfy my needs then I'm gonna go some other place or another church or another place or I'll just Stop going to church because it's all about me. And if I'm not satisfied then this is over.

You hear what I'm saying? And that really defining so much of what Christianity is today. But God has something more for us. Let's turn to verse 1 now. He says if I speak in the tongues of men and of angels.

Love as the Measure of Spiritual Speech

But have not love. I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. Now there's three particular points that Paul is going to deal with in these three verses. Each verse deals with a different issue.

Paul is not taking all the aspects of humanism in he is dealing with three primary points of it. But not all of them. Now he begins here with saying that though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels.

Well, the idea of tongues of men would be the eloquence if I could speak in the most eloquent of way be the best preacher or the best speaker the world has ever known if I could take these natural words and Weave them together in such a way that it could move people to laughter and the tears and move them Emotionally.

And if I could do that, but don't have love. I'm nothing. And so if I had the ability to speak with the wisdom and the greatest wisdom and eloquence of men. But take it father if I had the ability to speak with the wisdom of angels.

Imagine the language of angels. We don't even know what that language is. Interesting story is of Manoah and his wife. They had the son Samson and an angel came to Manoah Went and told her that she was gonna have a child.

She was barren and then Manoah says well I want to know how to raise this son that's supposed to be a Nazarite and the angel came back and told him how to raise a child and Manoah went and says says what is your name?

And he says why do you ask me my name? It is Indescribable to you. He says there's no word to describe my name because my name is from another world from another language that this world cannot even Comprehend.

Imagine the language of angels. Imagine the wisdom of angels. They speak of God and they speak of God in ways that are just so astounding that we would just be awestruck on our faces weeping as we're overwhelmed with the magnificence of this God.

And Even if I could describe God in the wonder of who he is with angelic words with angelic passion with angelic wisdom. If I don't have love I Miss it all. I Miss everything. That's a disturbing thought.

What he's trying to bring out here is that love is more than words. What do we have today. Boy meets girl no time at all he's saying baby, I love you. Just lied through his teeth what he said. What he really should say is baby.

I'm infatuated with you. Love is a choice like we looked at this morning. God makes a choice to love us. He made a choice of it. He calls us to a love that is an agape love that makes the choice to love him.

But you understand that this agape love is not just a choice that we make to love God. It is a type of love that should be operating to us to one another. That agape love should be in the fellowship of the Saints and at home that I choose.

That I choose to love my wife when she's not lovable and that she chooses to love me when I'm not lovable. That she doesn't love me just because I'm a nice guy when I'm a nice guy and not love me when I'm not.

Because that's not love. True love is making that choice as I choose to love whether you are kind or lovable to me or not. I choose to put my affection upon you and so here is this idea of love that is more than words.

Imagine if we had everything down pat if we could be doctrinally correct and you know. This can happen a whole lot that people can be doctrinally correct and hardest can be. They can have all the doctrine that man they can argue they can cause church splits because man.

They got the they got the knowledge that this is wrong natural, but there's no love in their words. There's no love in their action. There's no love what they do and as a result even the doctrine the correct doctrine.

They have becomes death because there's no love in it because it is humanistic. It's natural. It's for selfish ambition and selfish purpose and not for the benefit of others. It is something then that becomes death in it because that's all the natural love is able to do even if it is doctrinally correct.

The natural love is destructive. That's a serious issue. Love is far more than feelings. You don't fall in love and you don't fall out of love. What it comes down to be is you make the choice to love and you make the choice not to love.

What happens in the real situation of this world with the breakdown of marriages is that a man or woman Choose to stop loving each other. They may not understand what they're doing. But hurt after hurt and pain after pain starts making them make choices saying I'm backing off from him.

I'm backing away from him. I'm tired of being hurt. I'm tired of giving in such backing off making conscious choices to stop loving. If they understood what they were doing it might scare the socks out of them.

But they don't understand they are making a choice step by step saying I will not forgive. I will not you walk in this love anymore. I'm gonna stop it. I have the right to be happy. But that has nothing to do with love.

Moral Relativism and the Breakdown of Covenant Love

Humanistic love is always relativistic. Relativistic what is relativism moral relativism is where let me put it like this. You have humanism and moral relativism has become the religion of America become the religion of the American government.

Has become the doctrine and foundation of all public schools from kindergarten all the way through graduate school. It defines our media. It is the religion of America. We have forsaken the Lord God we've forsaken them and now our nation pursues a humanistic man-centered God and Morals then become relativistic as a result and what that means you hear constantly in various ways.

Throughout our culture is that whatever is good for you is good for you. Whatever is good for me is good for me. There was this interview that this one man was doing and he asked this woman is adultery wrong.

She paused and thought for a moment. She says no. Not if they both agree in and You know, it just threw me. I'm just going fall. What craziness? Well what ten years ago nobody would have said that even with how far we had fallen ten years ago.

But now our culture is so far fallen that now somebody will say well adultery is not wrong. You know if they both agree on it and they're not fulfilled in their marriage. And so I guess adultery would be okay because if morals are relative and worry and humanism is our religion.

Then if it's all about me, and I think that it's right, then it must be right. Therefore I could cheat on my husband or cheat on my on my wife as a result of that or I could be unfaithful to the body of Christ and begin to go and and just live a crazy life or whatever would be.

I could be unfaithful to God and go back into the world and everything would be okay. Because morals become relative because I can live a life then that is contrary. But that type of relativism is never an expression of authentic love.

It is raw selfishness. Where man is a center and some of everything where it's all about them put that in the marriage. And you have nothing but death and destruction you have nothing but pain and sorrow put upon spouses upon children upon grandchildren.

You have nothing. But the breakdown of testimony among the community. Going back to that story of that husband and wife the deacon that she left him and and she got a divorce. He didn't want he tried everything he could to reconcile.

There were two small rural communities. Can you imagine what that did in that community? Can you imagine how Christ was slandered through the whole thing? Absolutely slandered. Because natural humanistic love defined that relationship and let me put it at least that woman I believe both of them takes two to tango, but she's the one who instituted it and it became nothing but a slander to Christ.

Tragic sad love was designed by God to be an investment of our entire being. He will not let you give half of yourself to him or even 90 of yourself to him. You must give the entirety of yourself to him.

And I want you to understand a principle that I'm going to to present here is that if you want to love others. Rightly, there's only one way to love others. Rightly is that you must love him supreme if you do not love him supremely.

You will never learn how to love others rightly because the only way that I can love others, right? I have to love him rightly the more I fall in love with him. The more his love will define my life and pour through me to love others.

Every time I see myself not loving my wife like I should I've got to go to my knees and says dear God. It's because I'm not loving you like I should change me. Oh Lord. Teach me how to love you more that I might be able to express that love of yours to my wife and to other people.

Every time I see myself living out humanistic man-centered love I have to go to God and plead with him for forgiveness and say God change me. Teach me how to love you more that I might express your love more because obviously I don't have it working in my life the way That it should so this natural love is still operating in me.

And so it's an investment of our entire being that means loving God is an investment of your tire B, but then loving your spouse is the next thing and You want to love your spouse right. Love him, you know.

Love him as you should then love your spouse the way that you should and that's the only way you'll be able to do it. It tells us through the teachings of Paul that husbands you are to give yourself to your wife.

Love yourself as Christ loved the church. Do you understand men that the health of the home is up to you? It's up to you it is on your shoulders to be the man that loves like Christ in the home and Sets the love the standard of love in that home.

If you are loving selfishly the home will have a selfish love in it. If you become a man that begins to love Selflessly, then you will set a standard in that home and you'll even teach your spouse and children and so on how to love Selflessly if you don't have the benefit of a godly husband to be able to do it.

Then why is you have to do it and you're called to do it one way or the other? But yet God puts the highest call upon the man to give yourself away. Like he gave himself up for us. This selfless this interested love is the giving of ourselves away for the well-being of others not for what we get out of it.

The Football Coach and Selfless Marriage

I remember this story of a football coach a professional football coach. That he was just so consumed with football making big money as a professional coach. He was a Christian but so consumed with it when he he'd be away during football season and then in training.

He'd be gone all the time and when he was home He's watching football games constantly consumed with it and not having time with his wife or anything else. He's so consumed with it and his wife. Started backing away from more and more and more and finally one day.

She says I can't take it anymore. Says I don't believe in divorce. I will stay your wife. I'll wash your laundry. I'll cook your meals says but I am checking out emotionally from this marriage and he thought it'll be gone.

It'll be done but weeks and months went and he saw what he had done. He started opening up his eyes and he's got some counsel of what to do and basically the council was says love her back winner back and.

So he started pursuing her with selfless. And he won her back and had a marriage better than anybody had before. Because he came to understand something that his love was all selfish self-absorbed. It was all about him and the moment he started becoming the man of the house and giving himself away.

He could win his wife's affection. Now should she have shut down? No, she shouldn't that was wrong on her part. We sometimes can respond to the pain in very wrong ways. But that's why we still need the cross and we still need to learn what is to run to the foot of the cross.