What's Love Got To Do With It?

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.