A More Excellent Way, sermon fragment by Patrick Welch

A MORE EXCELLENT WAY
1 Corinthians 13
The Way of Love
1 If I speak with human eloquence and angelic ecstasy but don't love, I'm nothing but the creaking of a rusty gate. 2If I speak God's Word with power, revealing all his mysteries and making everything plain as day, and if I have faith that says to a mountain, "Jump," and it jumps, but I don't love, I'm nothing. 3-7If I give everything I own to the poor and even go to the stake to be burned as a martyr, but I don't love, I've gotten nowhere. So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I'm bankrupt without love.

Love never gives up.
Love cares more for others than for self.
Love doesn't want what it doesn't have.
Love doesn't strut,
Doesn't have a swelled head,
Doesn't force itself on others,
Isn't always "me first,"
Doesn't fly off the handle,
Doesn't keep score of the sins of others,
Doesn't revel when others grovel,
Takes pleasure in the flowering of truth,
Puts up with anything,
Trusts God always,
Always looks for the best,
Never looks back,
But keeps going to the end.
8-10Love never dies. Inspired speech will be over some day; praying in tongues will end; understanding will reach its limit. We know only a portion of the truth, and what we say about God is always incomplete. But when the Complete arrives, our incompletes will be canceled.
11When I was an infant at my mother's breast, I gurgled and cooed like any infant. When I grew up, I left those infant ways for good.
12We don't yet see things clearly. We're squinting in a fog, peering through a mist. But it won't be long before the weather clears and the sun shines bright! We'll see it all then, see it all as clearly as God sees us, knowing him directly just as he knows us!
13But for right now, until that completeness, we have three things to do to lead us toward that consummation: Trust steadily in God, hope unswervingly, love extravagantly. And the best of the three is love.

Most of you love this passage for different reasons. It is almost like a form of poetry for us…we use it at weddings and special occasions. It is as though it points us to something that we aspire toward, and so we should. There is far too much here for us to give deserved attention to, but we can quickly race through these 15 observations about love and perhaps make a few observations about love beyond that.

1 John 4:16 tells us that “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him..” We know that we are supposed to be loving and Paul tells us in no uncertain terms that without love, anything we say or do even if we are gifted in fantastic ways is meaningless.

“Though I speak in the tongues of men and of angels but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries, and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. If I give away all that I have, and if I deliver my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.” From "The Message."

Now, let me make sure I understand this. St. Paul seems to be saying that I can be an eloquent preacher of the gospel, with my worship services broadcast by satellite around the world, but if I have a heart full of hatred and indulge in character assassination, I am a bunch of noise. I can have my Ph. D. in nuclear physics, be a Nobel prize winner with several books to my credit, but if I’m not able to relate to my family, I’ve accomplished nothing. I can be a world class athlete, totally committed to being the best I can be, but if I care not for others, my gold medals are a sham. Is that what St. Paul is saying? Gee, I can think of some people who are not going to want to hear that. But here is the first thing St. Paul says to us: The only excellence that counts in life is excellence in love.