Love Never Fails

Title: Love Never Fails                        Text: I Corinthians 13:8a

Introduction: Read I Corinthians 13:1-8a

I. The meaning of love that “never fails”:

Noah Webster – Fail – “To become deficient; to be insufficient; to cease to be abundant for supply; or to be entirely wanting. We say, in a dry season, the springs and streams fail or are failing, before they are entirely exhausted. We say also that the springs failed, when they entirely ceased to flow. Crops fail wholly or partially.”

Hodge: “Love never fails, i.e. it endures for ever. It is not designed and adapted, as are the gifts under consideration, merely to the present state of existence, but to our future and immortal state of being.”

Morris: “The permanence of love is stressed. Love never faileth, the verb being that in common use for ‘to fall’. It comes to be used in the sense of ‘collapse’, ‘suffer ruin’. Love will never suffer such a fate” (pg.186).

Barclay: “[Paul] stresses [loves] absolute permanency. When all the things in which men glory have passed away love will still stand. In one of the most wonderfully lyrical verses of scripture The Song of Solomon (8:7) sings, ‘Many waters cannot quench love, neither can floods drown it.’ The one unconquerable thing is love” (pg.125).

John Wesley: “Love never faileth-It accompanies to, and adorns us in, eternity; it prepares us for, and constitutes, heaven.”

Has there ever been an example of Love that failed? No – love never fails!

However, there are many examples of failures because of a lack of love.

II. The Bible example of Love that “never fails”: God and Jesus Christ

Romans 8:35-39 “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

III. Review of the 14 attributes of love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-8 that “never fail”.

1. Love is longsuffering – it bears injuries or provocation for a long time; it is patient, not easily provoked – Is there someone you need to continue to be patient with in a loving way?

2. Love is kind – Disposed to do good to others – Is there someone you cans show kindness to this week in a loving way?

3. Love does not envy – It desires not to deprive others of what is rightfully theirs, it does not wish that they did not have it or had it to a lesser degree. – Is there someone or something you are envying that is keeping you from being loving?

4. Love is not proud – Is there something that you are proud about that is keeping you from loving God and others?

5. Love is not unseemly – it is not unfit, unbecoming, or indecent. Do you have unloving behavior in your life for which you should receive correction from the Lord, so you can be a more loving person?

6. Love seeketh not her own – Love is not selfish! Are there some selfish thoughts and motives in your heart that are keeping you from loving others?

7. Love is not easily provoked – Is not quick tempered, touchy, irritable. Have you been irritable with someone today? If so the loving thing to do is to make it right by asking forgiveness.

8. Love thinketh no evil – it does not keep a ledger of the wrongs – it does not store up the memory of any wrong it has received. Do you have a list of someone’s wrongs stored up that you just won’t forgive? If so, do the loving thing and give it to God.

9. Love does not rejoice in iniquity – Love finds no pleasure in the sin of others that brings hardship and judgement into eir lives. If you are rejoicing over the downfall of others, repent and pray for God’s mercy to be upon them.

10. Love rejoices in the truth – What truth have you rejoiced in today? Can you think of something true, that you can rejoice about in a loving way with others?

11. Love bears all things – it enduringly protects and covers the beloved in all things. What ever the hardship, difficulty, attack, and trial, the loving person is there to help, not only to back you up but also to be a shield. Are you being a protecting shield in your love for others?

12. Love believeth all things – love is completely trusting, it is not suspicious. Have you failed to give someone the benefit of the doubt lately? The loving thing is to check it out!

13. Love hopeth all things – it does not despair, it keeps on hoping for the best in regard for all men. Love refuses to take failure as final it does not give up on someone. Have you been tempted to give up on someone for whom you care deeply? Love keeps caring

14. Love endureth all things – Love sustains the assaults of suffering or persecution, in the sense of bearing up under them, and enduring them patiently. Is your love for someone being tested? Let God help you to love them for the long hall.

IV. Developing a life of Love that “never fails”: 1 John 4:7-21

Conclusion: These 14 attributes of love are why love never fails. How are you and I doing in our love for others? Jesus said that people would know that we are His disciples by our love for each other. A lack of love certainly indicates a lack of discipleship, of sitting at the Master’s feet and learning from Him. The Lord will surely help if we simply ask, and learn of Him.

“Beloved, let us love one another: for love is of God; and every one that loveth is born of God, and knoweth God” (1John 4:7).

Ephesians 4:32 “And be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ’s sake hath forgiven you.”