Agape Love: The More Excellent Way to Reflect Christ

Introduction

There is a question that runs through the whole of Christian life: how do you truly reflect Christ? In other words, how can you tell that a life has been transformed by the gospel? This Sunday at ICC TV Montreal, Pastor Renathe YAO recalled a truth that Paul already had to remind the Corinthians of: the true mark is neither spectacular gifts, nor biblical knowledge, nor visible works. It's love. A very specific love that the New Testament calls agape.

The preacher sets the scene starting from the fall in the garden of Eden. Something was taken from man the day he disobeyed: dominion, but also and especially the image of God he had been clothed with. In Christ, that removed portion is restored. The problem is that you can live a religious life without ever letting Christ be formed in you. That is exactly the drama of the church in Corinth.

This article follows the thread of the sermon to help you measure where you stand in your walk: are you collecting gifts and knowledge, or are you letting the image of Christ take shape in you?

Article Outline

1. The Fall Disfigured the Image of God in Man

2. In Christ, the Image Is Restored to Us

3. Corinth's Mistake: Having Everything Except the Essential

4. The More Excellent Way: Agape, What the Devil Cannot Counterfeit

5. Beholding in Order to Be Transformed

1. The Fall Disfigured the Image of God in Man

The pastor begins with a reminder: in the beginning, God creates man in his image and likeness and gives him dominion over the earth (Genesis 1:26). This dominion is not a whim; it flows from the image. Structure follows function. Adam could exercise dominion because he carried the image of the one who reigns.

When the serpent's cunning reaches Eve, then Adam, something shifts. God comes to meet them in the cool of the day, as was apparently his custom, and he asks a question that is not a request for information: "Adam, where are you?" God knows where Adam is. What he's asking him to do is measure for himself the distance he has just created.

From that moment on, a new vocabulary enters human history. The word suffering. The word pain. A dominion that turns negative, that of a husband crushing his wife. The curse pronounced over the ground. The sweat that comes with labor. All of this, the preacher says, was not part of the original plan. The image Adam carried was disfigured, and this new image draws to itself another kind of words, another kind of life.

2. In Christ, the Image Is Restored to Us

The good news of the sermon is that the fall does not have the last word. When you are born again, when you connect to Christ, when you become a new creation, the portion that was taken away is restored to you. This is what sets the believer apart from a mere Adam: in Christ, he recovers the position the first man had lost.

But be careful: receiving this restoration does not mean the image is already fully formed in you. This is where Paul steps in very personally in Galatians 4:19. He writes: "My little children, for whom I am again in the anguish of childbirth until Christ is formed in you." Paul had already given birth to them once at their conversion. And yet he suffers again, because the image of Christ is not yet visible in them.

The pastor extends the image: a mother who gives birth knows the pains of childbirth, but the labor continues long after. The child must eat, sit up, walk, grow until reaching adult stature. The Christian life is the same: Christ must be formed in you until you reach the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ.

3. Corinth's Mistake: Having Everything Except the Essential

To illustrate this, Paul writes to a church that seems to have everything. The pastor opens 1 Corinthians 1:4-5: "I give thanks to my God always for you because of the grace of God that was given you in Christ Jesus, that in every way you were enriched in him in all speech and all knowledge."

The word "speech" here is logos: the letter, the text, the statement. The word "knowledge" is gnosis, intellectual knowledge. The Corinthians were brilliant. When you quoted a verse, they could finish it. They understood. They debated. And on top of that, they had every gift: tongues, prophecy, healing, gifts Paul himself lists in 1 Corinthians 12.

On paper, the ideal church. And yet Paul writes them two long letters. Why? Because he looks and does not yet see the image. He suffers the pains of childbirth. The preacher puts it this way: Christ is not yet formed. That's why, even today, the church still needs so many seminars, so much teaching. Because we have accumulated a great deal, but Christ is not always visible in us.

4. The More Excellent Way: Agape, What the Devil Cannot Counterfeit

At the end of 1 Corinthians 12, Paul opens a door: "And I will show you a still more excellent way." And he continues with 1 Corinthians 13. The more excellent way is love. Not just any love. Agape.

Paul is blunt: "If 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 I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing."

The pastor stresses a point that needs to be heard: the devil can counterfeit almost everything. He can copy gifts, manifestations, religious experiences, a certain kind of knowledge, a certain zeal. But there is one thing he cannot copy or reproduce: agape. Love that comes from God is the one distinguishing mark the enemy cannot forge.

That's why Paul then unfolds the portrait of love starting at verse 4: patient, kind, not envious, not boastful, not resentful, bears all things, hopes all things, endures all things. And this portrait matches exactly the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5. Love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. It's the same fruit that comes to authenticate whatever you accomplish.

The preacher then brings up Matthew 7:22-23, where Jesus speaks to people who, on judgment day, will plead their prophecies, their miracles, their exorcisms. And the Lord will answer them: "I never knew you." Why does he not know them? Because their actions were not produced, driven, inspired by love. And actions that are not produced by love do not count in heaven.

The pastor drops a sentence worth weighing: "Let's not be seduced by visible results, by knowledge, by logos. Let's go after what's deeper. Let's be people of the presence."

5. Beholding in Order to Be Transformed

How does this love form in us? The preacher contrasts two movements. After sinning, Adam flees far from the face of God. By contrast, when we give our lives to Christ, we come with unveiled face toward the Lord, as 2 Corinthians 3:18 says: "And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit."

Beholding, he says, is like a word for downloading. When you behold Christ, you are transfigured. You receive. God settles in you. The fruit begins to show, one virtue after another: patience, then self-control, then kindness, then faithfulness. The more you behold the one who is the fullness of all in all, the more you resemble him. The image sets.

This is where the more excellent way leads: it's not first a moral discipline or a spiritual performance, it's a gaze fixed on Christ that produces in you the love the devil cannot counterfeit.

Key Takeaways

• The fall of Adam disfigured the image of God; in Christ, that image is restored, but it must still be formed in you.
• You can have every gift, all the biblical knowledge, and still not reflect Christ.
• The more excellent way of 1 Corinthians 13 is agape, the one thing the enemy cannot counterfeit.
• The fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5 authenticates what God is really doing in you.
• Beholding Christ with an unveiled face is the path by which his image is formed in us.

Personal Application

• When I look at my life, what do I hold up to reassure myself: my gifts, my knowledge of the Bible, my activities in the church, or the fruit of the Spirit?
• Is there someone today I struggle to love, who reveals that Christ is not yet fully formed in me on that point?
• If I reread 1 Corinthians 13:4-7 putting my own name in place of the word "love," which verses would not hold up?
• What place does beholding Christ, in prayer and in the Word, actually occupy in my weeks?
• What action this week would I do differently if it were truly driven by love rather than by fear, pride, or habit?

Verses Cited

• Genesis 1:26
• Genesis 3
• Matthew 7:22-23
• 1 Corinthians 1:4-5
• 1 Corinthians 12
• 1 Corinthians 13
• 2 Corinthians 3:18
• Galatians 4:19
• Galatians 5:22-23

FAQ

What is the "more excellent way" Paul speaks of?

In 1 Corinthians 12:31, Paul announces he is going to show a still more excellent way than the pursuit of spiritual gifts. He follows up in chapter 13 with agape love. The more excellent way, then, is love as the driving force, without which gifts, knowledge, and sacrifice are worth nothing.

Why does Paul tell the Corinthians he is again suffering the pains of childbirth?

This expression is found in Galatians 4:19. Paul means that conversion is only a first birth. As long as Christ is not formed in the life of the believer, that is, as long as his image, his character, and his love are not concretely visible, the apostle continues to carry the burden of their growth.

How can I know if my actions are truly driven by love?

The sermon points to the fruit of the Spirit in Galatians 5:22-23 and to the portrait of love in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. If patience, kindness, freedom from pride, refusal to hold grudges, and genuine concern for others accompany your actions, you are walking the more excellent way. If not, it's time to come back and behold Christ so his image can be formed in you.