What is love? Love has always been a big topic of discussion between us humans. Much is said about love and much is written about love.
However, it seems to me that we have never been able to give a satisfactory answer to the question, ‘What is love?’ (1) But we are often able to describe love when we see it as Pastor Todd Cognet does when he quoted an article entitled ‘What is Love-From A Kid’s Point of View?’ from the March 14, 2002 issue of Light Singer. Here are some of the responses:
(2) "When my grandmother got arthritis, she couldn’t bend over and paint her toenails anymore. So my grandfather does it for her all the time, even when his hands got arthritis too. That’s love."
(3) "When someone loves you, the way they say your name is different. You know that your name is safe in their mouth."
(4) "Love is when someone hurts you, and you get so mad, but you don’t yell at them because you know it would hurt their feelings."
(5)"Love is when my mommy makes coffee for my daddy and she takes a sip before giving it to him, to make sure the taste is okay."
(6)"Love is what’s in the room with you at Christmas if you stop opening presents and listen."
(7) "Love is like a little old woman and a little old man who are still friends even after they know each other so well."
(8) "Love is when Mommy sees Daddy smelly and sweaty and still says he is handsomer than Robert Redford."
(9) "Love is when your puppy licks your face even after you left him alone all day."
(10) "You really shouldn’t say ’I love you’ unless you mean it. But if you mean it, you should say it a lot. People forget."
We can ‘see’ love in action in these wonderful statements, can’t we? Maybe this is why we cannot satisfactorily answer the question, ‘What is love?’ because love is a verb and expressed in acts of service and support.
(11) Our summer series, “Being God’s People by Serving, Obeying, and Giving,” is focusing on three important values that our church operates need by. (Hey, a photo from last year’s Bible School!)
(12) Last month we looked at the value of service, what I called a motivational value. We examined the opening chapters of I Corinthians and discovered that Paul had to remind the Corinthian believers that they were to be concerned about serving the Lord while being focused on the power of the cross to change them and not be hung up on preaching personalities or flowery preaching designed to impress them.
(13) Today, we focus on the foundational value of obedience, which brings us to our main text. Our text, which is one of the most quoted and favored chapters in the Bible, comes after Paul’s comments regarding the important place that all believers have in the body of Christ, the church.
Now, you might be asking at this point, ‘Jim, if we are looking at the foundational value of obedience, how is love tied into obedience?’ Good question! I’m glad that you asked! Here is my long-winded answer!
As we look at I Corinthians 13, please notice that there are three separate segments to it. (14)
The opening segment is really a summary of what Paul has been talking about from chapter 1 to this point and is the completion of his thought at the end of chapter 12 when he says, ‘First, however, let me tell you about something else that is better than any of them!’
‘Them’ refers to the spiritual gifts, God given abilities used in the church, which Paul has just spoken of in chapter 12.
Chapter 13 is a transition to a new segment of I Corinthians in which he will summarize his thoughts about the competitive and frankly, prideful, atmosphere in the church that needs to be changed. Chapter 13 is about an even more foundational value – love.
Yet, love is also a motivational value like service as well as an operational value like giving that we will be addressing next month. With love, we serve, obey, and give. This is what Paul is also saying in the opening segment of this chapter.
‘Without love,’ says Paul, ‘great speeches mean little.’ ‘Without love the insight of wisdom can degenerate into meaningless babble.’
‘Without love,’ he goes on to say, ‘acts of great faith could come across as ‘fakey.’ Finally, ‘without love acts of sacrifice could be seen as merely grandstanding.’
Love is a critical quality for Christianity. It is central to our conception of God because God is love and because ‘God so loved the world’ He sent His Son to die for our sins.
Love is therefore a critical quality to the life and health of our church. And all of these acts that Paul speaks of in the opening verses of chapter 13 are acts of ministry, proclaiming the word, expressing faith, giving wise advice and insight, and serving others sacrificially. But they must done in love if they are to have the right kind of impact.
This leads us to the second segment of our text, verses 4-7, that is a key portion of this chapter. (15)
‘Love is patient and kind. Love is not jealous or boastful or proud or rude. Love does not demand its own way. Love is not irritable, and it keeps no record of when it has been wronged. It is never glad about injustice but rejoices whenever the truth wins out. Love never gives up, never loses faith, is always hopeful, and endures through every circumstance.’
I don’t know about you, but this working definition of love, is very different from what I see proclaimed as love these days. It is my opinion that love has been over sexualized to the point that people are so desperate for this kind of love that they will do anything to get it. It seems that love, like a great deal of things in our culture, has become a commodity that is traded and sold to the cheapest bidder.
As I reflected on these words this past week I thought about the various articles, books, e-mail columns, and web blogs, that I have read about the church and ministry. At times, they have seemed so competitive and argumentative that I have thought, ‘Has the church given up on love?’
How well do we express this kind of love around here and out there? I know that I have not always expressed this kind of love but I want to do so.
And this leads to the final section of chapter 13, the supremacy of love. As I think about all the ink and electronic font used these days about strategies, models, techniques, passion, and vision for ministry, I am concerned that we have forgotten about the supremacy of love in the church and faith.
We need to think about these other things, but we need to be possessed of a love that Paul tells us goes beyond the current fads and generational issues. Hear him again from verse 8 through the rest of the chapter:
‘Love will last forever, but prophecy and speaking in unknown languages and special knowledge will all disappear. Now we know only a little, and even the gift of prophecy reveals little! But when the end comes, these special gifts will all disappear.
It’s like this: When I was a child, I spoke and thought and reasoned as a child does. But when I grew up, I put away childish things. Now we see things imperfectly as in a poor mirror, but then we will see everything with perfect clarity. All that I know now is partial and incomplete, but then I will know everything completely, just as God knows me now.
There are three things that will endure—faith, hope, and love—and the greatest of these is love.’
What does Paul mean in this final segment? (16)
He first of all says, (a) ‘Our giftedness is limited.’ Despite the great amount of books, workshops, seminars, and programs available to discover our giftedness, our gifts, our skills, our passion, and our calling, will only take us so far. What is needed is the power of God’s Holy love and Holy Spirit to take us where He wants us. God’s love is not limited by limitations if we allow it to motivate and guide us.
(b) Then he says, ‘Our perspective is limited.’ Being human and flawed has warped our perspective. ‘We see,’ as the King James Version says, ‘through a glass darkly.’ We see, and hence know, that our vision, perception, and perspective are limited. Therefore, because they are, we need to have God’s love give us eyes to see things from a different perspective.
(c) Finally he says, ‘Only three things will endure and that of those three, love is the supreme.’
As I think about the endurance of faith, hope, and love and the loss of everything else, I am reminded of a story told by Keith Miller in his book ‘Habitation of Dragons,’ about John Knox’s experience at visiting a church his father had pastored and he had spent an ‘important part of his boyhood’ fifty years earlier. The perspective of time had come to bear on Knox’s views and this is what he said.
‘…I found that he was vividly remembered by the oldest members of the church. But the number of these is small and becomes smaller as each year passes, and quite soon no one at all will remember him.’
A few weeks ago, the second of two pastors of the first church I served almost 25 years ago, passed away the first one having passed away in the spring of 2005. There will come a day, when I will not be remembered in any of the churches that I have served. To some of us, the names of previous pastors and significant laypersons in this church do not hold any memory. For others of us, we are the last to remember pastors and leaders of another generation.
I say this not to be gloomy but to remind us that what matters is the faith, hope, and love that these people have demonstrated to us. Love is supreme and must remain so in our lives and ministry.
Now, I turn the corner on my long-winded answer to you, and take us to John 14:21 where we read that Jesus says, ‘Those who obey my commandments are the ones who love me. And because they love me, my Father will love them, and I will love them. And I will reveal myself to each one of them.”
Then to 1 John 2:3-6 ‘And how can we be sure that we belong to him? By obeying his commandments. If someone says, “I belong to God,” but doesn’t obey God’s commandments, that person is a liar and does not live in the truth. But those who obey God’s word really do love him. That is the way to know whether or not we live in him. Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Christ did.’
This is where love and obedience come together. This is where there is ‘an obedience of love’ and ‘love of obedience.’ To be ‘a fully following and faithfully functioning church’ we need to love God and we express that love through obedience to Him.
It is hard to love others and to obey the commands of Christ in this regard. However, if we don’t learn how (and, I think that we will always be learning how to love others until we die or the Lord returns) then how our church (any church) have an effective ministry? This brings me to the ‘bridge builder’ ministry for this segment of our series. It is a Natural Church Development Survey (17):
• Need 30 persons (16 and up) to take it
• Sunday, August 20th in the afternoon
• Will measure 8 qualitative areas
• Part of the SHAPE program
• When the results are given – a follow-up plan will take shape to address important areas
• Why? Obedience to and love for God and one another helps us grow!
As part of the SHAPE program that I am currently involved in, every church that is represented by their pastor takes this survey to help it grow alongside its pastor. And one of the areas that it measures is called ‘Loving Relationships.’
Now, don’t panic. No one will know who said what. The results that we receive are composite, not individual, results.
Pastor Tim Kumfer from our sister church in Columbia City will be our ‘coach’ through this process. He will be the one to administer the test on Sunday afternoon, August 20th and then will return sometime in September to share the results with us.
We then will develop an action plan to help us implement changes to address our weakest area. Again, don’t panic. This is a process designed to help us move forward and not discourage us.
To love is a wonderful, and at times, challenging thing. Pastor Ian Service reminds us of this challenge with the following poem that I conclude with:
What joy to love the saints above
When I get home to glory.
To love below, the saints I know,
Well, that’s another story!
To love mankind I always find
To be a simple task.
To have love for the man next door
Is more than one should ask!
Love’s full and free when two agree;
It isn’t hard at all.
But easy it ain’t to love the saint
Who drives me up the wall!
When someone’s kind, and has Christ’s mind,
I love him with great ease.
But one who hurts with words he blurts,
Don’t make me love him, please!
If no one needs my loving deeds,
I love unstintingly.
But hungry saints with real complaints
Should stay away from me!
But Jesus said, to those He led,
“By this all will discover
That you are Mine. This is the sign –
That you love one another.”
Let us love as Jesus would have us love and let us ask the Holy Spirit to help us do so. Amen.
Sources:
Cognet and Service illustrations were taken from www.sermoncentral.com © 2006
Miller quote is from Habitations of Dragons, page 110. © 1970, 1992 by Keith Miller
Power Points for this sermon are available by e-mailing me at pastorjim46755@yahoo.com and asking for ‘072306svgs’ Please note that all slides for a particular presentation may not be available.
