INTRODUCTION
• PC Video on Newly Weds.
• SLIDE #1
• Today is Valentine’s Day. This is a day in which we are supposed to show the special one we love that we love them in some special (flowers, jewelry. Candy) way(s).
• Given the holiday of love we are celebrating along with the fact that we are going to begin our Marriage Built to Last Small Group Studies next week, I want us to take the next couple of weeks to examine a passage that may be one of the more familiar in the scriptures.
• 1 Corinthians 13 is used many times during the wedding ceremony. This week and next week I want us to examine what it means.
• A small bit of background to the passage. Paul was writing to the Corinthian Church about some of the many issues they were struggling with. After spending a lot of time on the issues, Paul gets to the heart of the issue, at the heart of their problems is a lack of love.
• The church allowed EVERYTHING get in the way of loving one another as Jesus wanted them to. They valued many things of the issue of love.
• The church was doing some of the right actions, but there was something more important they were missing.
• Many couples struggle through their relationships and honestly, many people struggle with other relationships in their lives because they think they are ok because they are DOING what they feel are the right things. That begs the question.
• If you are doing the right THINGS, is that all that matters? Let us answer that question as we get ready to examine the question, “What’s Love Got To Do With It?”
• Let us read 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 together and then we will look at each of the three verses in more detail.
• SLIDE #2
• 1 Corinthians 13:1-3(ESV) 1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2And 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. 3If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
• Paul state three lofty things to be able to do, let’s begin by looking at…
• SLIDE #3
SERMON
Is love important if you can…
I. Say it all.
• 1If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
• In verse one, Paul goes after a Spiritual gift that was most coveted among those in the Corinthian Church.
• The church was seeking the ability to have the gift of tongues so they could brag about themselves. Even in their pride they were still using the gifts to help others.
• Tongues were the ability to speak languages you did not know, the best example of this was on the Day of Pentecost in Acts 2.
• One of the reasons we know that is what Paul is speaking of is because of the word he uses for “SPEAK”
• There are 2 basic words in the Greek that we translate “to speak”
• One of them means to speak with the mind or with thought involved. This is the typical word used in the New Testament and in Modern Greek today. It is the word from which we get the word LOGIC.
• This is not the word Paul uses instead he uses another word that was commonly used in reference to speaking by the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
• It means to speak utterances without thinking about what was uttered. In other words the Holy Spirit was giving them what to say.
• Now with all that said, we have a contrast that gives us both ends of the language spectrum.
• What is implied in verse 1 is that IF I COULD SPEAK ALL THE LANGUAGES THAT MAN CAN SPEAK AS TO BE ABLE TO COMMUNICATE WITH ALL MANKIND, and have not love…
• Then the verse goes to another form of language when he speaks of speaking with the tongues of Angels.
• This refers to the language spoken in heave itself!
• Imagine if you could speak ANY language whether on earth or in Heaven.
• What a gift.
• Now the point of verse 1, can I just simply exercise this great gift and do so without being motivated by love?
• Yes and no. You can BUT, we are told that if we do not have love, then what we say or our gift has no real value.
• Paul says when we speak without love we are nothing more than a clanging cymbal.
• The cymbals Paul speaks of had a very irritating shrill sound to them. By the way, they were most often used in the pagan worship ceremonies.
• Just so we understand, the word love used here is one that basically means you are motivated to do what is spiritually best of others because we see value in them as a soul that God loves! We actively engage in doing what is best for others not looking to get something out of it for ourselves.
• BECOME
• Notice that even with a great gift, the gift to be able to communicate with anyone on earth or in heaven that if we do so without love, we will BECOME a noisy cymbal.
• The verb tense of the word BECOME implies three things..
o Being a noisy gong is not what we started out as when we gave our lives to Jesus.
o I am responsible for the degeneration into being a noisy gong, God did not cause it, my heart caused me to descend to such low depths.
o The verb tense indicates that there were past actions with continuous results. Meaning that if I regularly communicate with others without love, a noisy cymbal is what I will become.
• Thoughtless, loveless speech needs to be guarded because at some point we will become what we do not want to be.
• Whatever tongue we speak, whatever we say needs to be within the context of love, of doing what is spiritually best for others.
• Speech without love is just noise.
• Next let’s see if…
• SLIDE #4
Is love important if you can…
II. Know it all.
• Let’s revisit verse 2.
• SLIDE #5
• 1 Corinthians 13:2(ESV) 2And 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.
• Prophetic powers refers to one who is receiving messages from God. Prophecies are inspired utterances from God.
• Imagine being so plugged into God that what you say is what God says!
• Understanding mysteries refers to knowing what was previously not known until God reveals the meaning.
• In the Old Testament the Prophets did not get to see the whole picture, they knew in part.
• SLIDE #6
• 1 Corinthians 13:12(ESV) 12For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known.
• The next progression is all knowledge. This is probably referring to the Spiritual gift of knowledge found in 1 Corinthians 12:8.
• These items would infer that a person is close to God.
• If we have ALL that knowledge, then we should have a faith that can move mountains, this is the faith Paul refers to. Jesus speaks of it in Matthew 17:20
• SLIDE #7
• Matthew 17:20(ESV) 20He said to them, “Because of your little faith. For truly, I say to you, if you have faith like a grain of mustard seed, you will say to this mountain, ‘Move from here to there,’ and it will move, and nothing will be impossible for you.”£
• This seems like a VERY spiritual person who is close to God.
• Do you need love if you possess all this knowledge?
• YES!
• Paul tells us that even if we have all the stuff he speaks of and do not have love, we are NOTHING!
• NOTHING means of NO VALUE.
• How can that be?
• It has been said that knowledge without love will cause the young to be arrogant and conceited while with those who are older it can lead to being dictatorial.
• Our knowledge is of no value to us if we do not love.
• The first two things we can maybe see why love is important, but let us look at the last issue.
• SLIDE #8
Is love important if you can…
III. Give it all.
• Back to verse 3.
• SLIDE #9
• 1 Corinthians 13:3(ESV) 3If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.
• Now we are getting to the tough one to grasp.
• The phrase, “give away” means to give away a little bit at a time to the most amount of people.
• In other words when Paul speaks of giving away all one has, it means they are giving it away to as many people as possible so many would benefit.
• Paul is saying that in God’s eyes we can give away all our stuff to the benefit of MANY people and it will gain us nothing with we do not have love.
• When we give we are to give in the spirit of love.
• You see, the motivation behind what we do is important, other may NEVER know our motives, but god does.
• We can fool those around us, but we cannot fool God.
• Does this verse mean that giving away all of stuff would not benefit others? NO, it says we gain nothing by it.
• Now it gets thicker, Paul goes to the extreme of saying that EVEN if you are willing to sacrifice yourself, if you do not have love, it gains you nothing in God’s eyes.
• Love has EVERYTHING to do with it!
CONCLUSION
• I want to conclude with a passage from James.
• SLIDE #10
• James 2:17(ESV) 17So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.
• That passage is so true.
• I would contend the following, “WORKS WITHOUT LOVE IS USELESS.
• Let me finish with this conclusion on the passage.
• Verse 1 tells us that without love I produce nothing of value
• Verse 2 tells us that without love we are of no value
• Verse 3 tells us that without love we gain nothing of value.
• God wants us to do what we do because of our live for Him and our love for others because God did what He did for our because He loves us! That is His motivation!
