Katie and I recently did a message on 1 Corinthians 13 in our series Fully Charged.
It is one of the most well-known passages in the bible. It’s read at most weddings, but what is it telling us? On the one hand, it is about relationships with other people. What it looks like to relate, to have a healthy marriage, friendship, or family. It also shows us what God’s love for us is like towards us. We see a picture of a Father in heaven who loves us in a way that is hard to fathom. But it is also about what spiritual maturity looks like for the follower of Jesus. In the context, Paul says we could have all kinds of gifts, but if we don’t have love, what do we have?
I think this passage is especially important in the world we live in, where we are sheltering in place, spending more time with our family, and missing some of the community that we have built.
Dave Willis said, “We are facing a defining time for marriages. No couple will emerge from this the same as they were before. You’ll either emerge from this crisis stronger by leaning on each other or weaker by fighting with each other.” and I think that’s true.
So what does it look like to have a healthy relationship in quarantine? Paul lists out what love is and is not.
We’ve already seen that love is patient and kind, and that love does not envy, boast, it is not prideful, dishonoring of others or self-seeking, and how anger and being historical show up in relationships.
But how does it show up in relationships, and why is it so important? Especially in quarantine.
At the end of 1 Corinthians 13, we’re told what love does, and I think, what makes love so powerful in our lives:
Love protects, trusts, hopes, perseveres, and never fails.
Love protects. We often think of protecting in love as someone standing up for someone or keeping harm from happening, and it is that. It is also protecting your heart, your mind, your desires for love.
Do you protect your calendar for your most important relationships?
Do you protect your eyes, mind, and keep up the fight against lust so that you can experience all that love has to offer?
Do you face the pain and scars you carry so that they don’t wreak havoc on your most important relationships?
Protection is so much bigger than what we make it out to be, and the reason that many of us don’t face our past is that it is painful.
Love trusts. Many of us struggle to trust, and so we miss love.
We struggle to be vulnerable, to share all of who we are.
I know I do. I like to keep things to myself, I’m afraid of being laughed at or sounding silly, and so I hold back. When I do, I miss out on love. I miss out on sharing love and receiving love.
Love trusts. Love opens itself up. Love is willing to share stories, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities. That doesn’t mean you share everything with everyone, but love means that you share it with someone, and that might be one of the hardest parts of love.
Love hopes. Hope is a picture of the future, what could be, what this relationship could become.
And that hope guides my actions, my reactions, my words, and feelings towards the other person.
One of the things that a married couple must continue to build into and fight for is hope for the future of your relationship and family. It is easy to look at another relationship and see what you don’t have or where you aren’t yet. But don’t lose hope. It is so easy to do that.
Love perseveres and never fails. Love doesn’t quit. Love walks in when everyone walks out.
Many times, we give up on people or relationships before we should. Often, this has to do with ease or letting go of stressful situations, but love requires us to dig in and persevere.
It is easy to look at the verses in 1 Corinthians 13 and think, I have no hope for love! Because it is a lot, it is a high bar. But also have a deep longing to experience this kind of love.
These verses give us a picture of God’s love for us.
But it also shows us where we are supposed to be in our most important relationships.
Yes, we fall short.
But this list gives us a glimpse of areas we need to grow in, ask God’s help to accomplish so that those around us feel our love.
Yet, in God’s grace, Jesus has this love for us. Jesus extends these to us. He keeps no record of wrongs, he serves, his love never fails, it protects, it hopes, and it lasts. God is not easily angered and delights in the truth. The truth of who God is and the truth of who He made us to be.
