Love: The Greatest Christian Grace

I'm preparing for my Sunday sermon and am studying the Apostle Paul's understanding of "love." Paul says something quite intriguing to me in 1 Corinthians about the supremacy of love: So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love (1 Cor 13:13).
What does Paul mean when he says that love is greater than faith and hope?
To be sure, our love can't atone for our sins, or make peace with God. Moreover,love can't exist independently of faith. Certainly Paul is not intending to set up one grace against another grace so that one person might have faith, another hope, and another love, and that the best of these was the man who had love. The three graces are inseparable. Where there is faith, there will always be love; and where there is love, there will be faith.
J.C. Ryle, to me, explains as well as anyone why Paul would say love is the supreme Christian grace:
(a) Love is called the greatest of graces because it is the one in which there is some likeness between the believer and God. Conversely, God has no need of faith. There is no one superior to Him in whom He must trust. Additionally, God has no need of hope. To Him all things are certain. But God is love: and the more love His people have, the more like they are to Him.
(b) Love is called the greatest of the graces because it is most useful to others. Faith and hope, have special reference to a believer's own private individual benefit. Faith unites us to Christ, brings peace with God, and opens the way to heaven. Hope fills our souls with cheerful expectation of things to come. But love is supremely the grace which makes a man useful. It is the spring of good works and kindnesses. Love raises up workers for Christ and keeps them working. Love smooths quarrels, and stops strife, and in this sense covers over a multitude of sins (1 Pet 4:8). Love adorns Christianity and recommends it to the world. A man may have real faith and yet his faith may be invisible to others. But a man's love cannot be hidden.
(c) Love is the greatest of the graces because it is the one which endures the longest. It will never die. Faith will one day be swallowed up by sight, and hope by certainty. Heaven will be the home of love. The inhabitants of heaven will be full of love.