Sermon -- 5th Sunday of Easter (May 18, 2025)

1 CORINTHIANS 13:1-13

WITHOUT LOVE, IT’S ALL FOR NOTHING.

In the name + of Jesus.

M: Alleluia!  Christ is risen!

C:  He is risen indeed.  Alleluia!

      The early church experienced many miraculous gifts.  Through the laying on of hands by the apostles, people received such gifts as “healing gifts, …miracles, …prophecy, …evaluating of spirits, …different kinds of tongues, and …the interpretation of tongues” (1 Corinthians 12:8-10).  St. Mark concluded his Gospel by stating the purpose of these gifts: “Those who went out preached everywhere, while the Lord worked with them and confirmed his word by the signs that accompanied it” (Mark 16:20).  The early church had not yet received the New Testament Scriptures in their entirety, so the miraculous gifts confirmed the message.  We do have the full New Testament, so we point to chapters and verses to teach and to defend the Christian faith.

     The congregation in Corinth was exceptionally gifted.  The Holy Spirit had supplied them with all sorts of abilities.  You would think that this congregation would have been a model of peace, joy, and love.  Unfortunately, the gifts the Holy Spirit had given to be a blessing for the whole congregation became a cause for pride, jealousy, and division.  They knew what the love of God was, but they were not good at putting it into practice.  St. Paul told them, without love, it’s all for nothing.

     St. Paul referred to those spiritual gifts and ramped them up to extreme levels.  “If I speak in the tongues … of angels….  If I have the gift of prophecy and know all the mysteries….  If I give away everything I own, and if I give up my body that I may be burned but do not have love, I gain nothing” (1 Corinthians 13:1-3).  In other words, if my life blazes with astounding signs of faith but I do not have love, what good is it?  What good is it if God is not honored?  What good is it if my neighbor is ignored or belittled?  Without love, it’s all for nothing.

     Jesus commanded us, “Love one another” (John 13:34).  I could preach that anywhere in the world and no one would disagree with me.  But ask people to define what that means, you will get many different answers.  So, let me ask you: What do you love, and why?  What probably comes to mind are things that make you happy or give you pleasure.  “I love pizza.”  Why?  Because it’s tasty.  I like it.  It brings me pleasure.  But if that is how I measure love, then it is all about me.  It is utterly self-centered.  If my focus is on what I can get out of people and things, that is not love at all.  Love looks outward, not inward.

     If you want to know what love is, then turn to the Lord.  St. John declared, “God is love” (1 John 4:16).  Not, “God is loving,” which he is.  But “God is love.”  God=love.  God’s love is demonstrated in giving gifts and working for the good of others.  Love is God’s policy, his commitment, his conviction. 

     This love is confessed by us in the Apostles’ Creed.  There we acknowledge what God does for his creation.  Regarding God the Father: “I believe that God has made me and all that exists, that he gave me my body and soul, eyes, ears, and all my members, my mind and all my abilities.  And I believe that God still preserves me by richly and daily providing clothing and shoes, food and drink, house and home, wife and children, land cattle and all that I own, and all that I need for body and life.  And God preserves me by defending me from all danger and guarding and protecting me from all evil.  All this God does because he is my good and merciful Father in heaven, and not because I have earned or deserved it.  For all this I ought to thank and praise, serve and obey him” (Luther’s Small Catechism; Apostles’ Creed: First Article).  Our Lord does this for all people, including those who despise him and deny him.  Such generous love is God’s policy, his commitment, his conviction.

     The Lord has blessed us richly with all that we need.  He desires that we respond to him with thanks and praise, service and obedience, but we have not given it.  Not everything in God’s word gives us pleasure.  God’s word does not allow us to do whatever pleases us.  The Corinthians took pleasure in their spiritual gifts but not in the people who were supposed to benefit from them.  This was worship and love of themselves.  Likewise, the reason we return to our sins is because we like them.  We believe we stand something to gain in them.  They make us happy even if they hurt others and dishonor the Lord.  Repent.

     While we have earned God’s wrath for worship and love of ourselves, God did not send his wrath.  He sent his Son.  That’s because God’s policy, God’s conviction, God’s commitment is love.  That love is personified in Jesus Christ—“who has redeemed me a lost and condemned creature, purchased and won me from all sin, from death, and from the power of the devil; not with gold or silver, but with his holy, precious blood and by his innocent sufferings and death.  All this he did that I should be his own and live under him in his kingdom, and serve him in everlasting righteousness, innocence, and blessedness” (Luther’s Small Catechism; Apostles’ Creed: Second Article). 

     Without love, it’s all for nothing.  But God’s love has done everything to work salvation for you.  Jesus went to the cross for sinners and rebels.  He did not wait for us to improve before he suffered and died for us.  He found us in our sinful condition—ungrateful for his gifts, yearning for cheap thrills, willing to be seduced by Satan who promises to give us whatever we want.  Rather than let us get the judgment we deserve, Jesus rescued us from it.  He even did this for people who despise and deny him because his love does not hinge on how people respond to it.  Love is the policy, the conviction, and the commitment.  Those who prefer their sins over Jesus’ love will be judged according to their preference.  The penitent will receive pardon and peace from our Lord.  Without love, it’s all for nothing.

     God’s love has been manifested for you because he has delivered his gifts to you and thereby delivered you into his kingdom.  The Holy Spirit’s love accomplished this.  For “I believe that I cannot by my own thinking or choosing believe in Jesus Christ, my Lord, or come to him.  But the Holy Spirit has called me through the Gospel, enlightened me with his gifts, sanctified and kept me in the true faith.  In the same way, he calls, gathers, enlightens, and sanctifies the whole Christian Church on earth and keeps it with Jesus Christ in the one true faith.  In this Christian Church, he daily and fully forgives all sins to me and all believers.  On the Last Day, he will raise up me and all the dead and give eternal life to me and all believers in Christ.  This is most certainly true” (Luther’s Small Catechism; Apostles’ Creed: Third Article).  And it is most certainly a pure and perfect love.  “It is not selfish.  It is not irritable.  It does not keep a record of wrongs.  It does not rejoice over unrighteousness but rejoices with the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:5-6).

     If we don’t have a love for God and his word, it doesn’t matter if the whole world tells us how nice we are.  Without love for God and his word, it’s all for nothing.  But the Lord pours this love upon us and into us.  This produces love for God, for his word, and for others.  God’s love and God’s gifts prove to us that he is good and merciful.  We recognize that his word is good and right. 

     Likewise, God’s love teaches us how to love our fellow man.  Just as God does not grant us permission to pursue any desire we have, so also love for our fellow man does not allow us to give blanket approval of every desire or idea they have.  After all, “(Love) does not behave indecently.  …(Love) does not rejoice over unrighteousness but rejoices with the truth” (1 Corinthians 13:5,6).  We cannot bless what God does not bless.  Love compels us to seek repentance from those who sin against God.  Although many will call this hate, it is not.  It is seeking their good which is what love does.  Now, you could judge and condemn people who have embraced sin.  While you would not be wrong, you need to be careful that your words are not haughty or self-righteous.  That’s because “Love is patient.  Love is kind.  …It is not arrogant” (1 Corinthians 13:4).  Without love, it’s all for nothing.  Our Lord does not take pleasure in the death of the wicked.  Neither do we.  The goal is not to flaunt how right we are; it is to seek the eternal good of others.  Love desires the salvation of all.

     The Corinthians proved that Christians struggle with these things.  We prove it, too.  We do not love purely.  Our faith has not been perfected yet.  That will not happen until we enter everlasting glory.  Then our love will be pure.  For, “when that which is complete has come, that which is partial will be done away with” (1 Corinthian 13:10).  Our longing for heaven is not just that our bodies will be made whole and our world will be made perfect, it is also that our minds and hearts and mouths will have and will show pure love for one another.  After all, without love, it’s all for nothing.

     The spiritual gifts among the Corinthian congregation did not make them a perfect congregation.  They still struggled to love one another.  Eventually, those spiritual passed away.  But do not think that we have been robbed of anything.  St. Paul had said that these gifts would fade out.  But the God who loves us still gives us what we need.  The miraculous gifts did not remain, but “these three remain: faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love” (1 Corinthians 13:13). 

     Faith is the trust in God and his word.  It is the commitment to live according to God’s word even when it is hard to do.  Faith will persist in godly living and trust that God knows what he is doing even when we don’t.  Hope is the confidence that we have a place awaiting us in the heavenly kingdom.  We have not received it yet, but we will.  When we are received into glory, even faith and hope will pass away.  In the heavenly kingdom, we will not live by faith, but by sight.  We will not hope for glory because we will have it.  But “Love never comes to an end” (1 Corinthians 13:8).  The God who is love is eternal.  His love is eternal.  And thanks be to God, we will dwell eternally with him—in his pure love for us, in our perfect love for him, and in peace and love for one another and all the people of God.

In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.