Talk

Why is Love the Greatest?

Ben Stuart

November, 8, 2020

“So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.”

1 Corinthians 13:13

Ben Stuart kicks off our new collection, The Space Between, exploring the connection between faith, hope, and love. All three show up throughout scripture and are all foundational to our beliefs, but Paul makes it clear that the greatest of the three is love. What is it about love that elevates it above faith and hope? And how can we apply love to our lives in these uncertain days?

Scripture References

9This is how God showed his love among us: He sent his one and only Son into the world that we might live through him.

10This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins.

1If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

2If 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 do not have love, I am nothing.

3If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

4Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud.

5It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

6Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.

7It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

8Love 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.

9For we know in part and we prophesy in part,

10but when completeness comes, what is in part disappears.

11When 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 the ways of childhood behind me.

12For now we see only a 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.

13And now these three remain: faith, hope and love. But the greatest of these is love.

8But since we belong to the day, let us be sober, putting on faith and love as a breastplate, and the hope of salvation as a helmet.

2We always thank God for all of you and continually mention you in our prayers.

3We remember before our God and Father your work produced by faith, your labor prompted by love, and your endurance inspired by hope in our Lord Jesus Christ.

7Dear friends, let us love one another, for love comes from God. Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.

8Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.

3Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in the heavenly realms with every spiritual blessing in Christ.

4For he chose us in him before the creation of the world to be holy and blameless in his sight. In love

16For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘Love your neighbor

and hate your enemy.’

But I tell you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you,

that you may be children of your Father in heaven. He causes his sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.

1Therefore, since we have been justified through faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ,

2through whom we have gained access by faith into this grace in which we now stand. And we boast in the hope of the glory of God.

3Not only so, but we also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;

4perseverance, character; and character, hope.

5And hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.

Ben Stuart

Ben Stuart is the pastor of Passion City Church D.C. Prior to joining Passion City Church, Ben served as the executive director of Breakaway Ministries on the campus of Texas A&M. He also earned a master’s degree in historical theology from Dallas Theological Seminary. He and his wife, Donna, live to inspire and equip people to walk with God for a lifetime.