Love's the thing

18/06/1997

1 Corinthians 13

1 CORINTHIANS 13

Occasionally a TV programme steals to popularity almost without anyone trumpeting its qualities. The programme “ER” has been like that. One of the leading men in that series has now come to international fame at the age of 35, has appeared on the Barry Norman show in which the whole programme was dedicated to the interview. One of the things about ER is that it’s hard to keep up with some of the dialogue. As the paramedics bring an injured patient into the Emergency Room they’re shouting important information very quickly to the hospital staff. I know that in the middle of it all are at least two vital signs.

blood pressure

pulse rate

These are called vital signs from the Latin vita which means simply “life”. They’re life signs. When there is a strong and healthy condition in your body then it will show in these and other indicators.

That principle’s important in the realm of Christianity. There are certain signs of life in an individual and in a Christian congregation. One of the NT’s favourite pictures for the church is that it’s a body, the Body of Christ in fact. Christ is the Head, people joined together as Christians are the Body, and the Holy Spirit living in those people individually and corporately is the life force.

The NT teaches that it’s possible for churches to be healthy, not so healthy, sick, in danger of death. In chapters 2 ‑ 3 of the Revelation of John there are descriptions of seven churches. And they fall into these varying conditions of health, sickness, nearly dead.

There are various indicators of life. Tonight we’re going to look at one. Maybe the most important one. When Dr Paul, the NT apostle, felt the pulse of the church in Corinth, a grim look came across his face, he shook his head, and began to write a prescription aimed at stimulating into fresh health one of these failing vital signs. 1 Corinthians 13.

1. LOVE’S CORE IMPORTANCE ‑ verses 1‑3

Most of us have had the experience of disappointment when first impressions give way to reality. That gifted and brilliant man turns out to selfish and arrogant and you wonder what on earth you saw in him in the first place.

The Christian church in Corinth was a brilliant and gifted congregation. If you were a scholar on your way to a conference or a business man on your way to Rome and you’d called in there for a Sunday you would have left thinking “What a marvellous church! If only there was a church like this back in Laodicea”. This church at the time of this letter’s writing was about four years old. It has been carved out of a pagan society by the tremendous Gospel work of the apostle Paul. It wasn’t only a brilliant church, it was an important church. It stood on the border between the Asian world and the European world; between the Jewish world and the Gentile world. A flourishing and healthy church in Greece augured well for the Gospel’s cause elsewhere.

Look how Paul describes this church in 1 Corinthians 1:4‑7. They were enriched in speech and knowledge, and their gifts abounded in those areas. If you wanted to hear a good sermon, go to Corinth. You’ll never leave that Sunday evening service without feeling that your mind has had a feast.

But there were serious problems in the spiritual health of these people.

ch. 1:11‑12 ‑ quarrels

ch. 3:1‑4 ‑ behaving like the unconverted world; infantile, given to jealousy and a contentious spirit.

ch. 6:5‑6 ‑ one Christian was taking another Christian to court to get some dispute settled which ought to have been dealt with in the church.

on top of that they were tolerating incest in one family and boasting about their freedom in matters of morality. They were putting their selfish spirit on display at the Lord’s Supper when some were feeding their faces and others were going home hungry.

Paul’s shouting out the blood pressure and the pulse rate and the temperature of this church, and he shouts loudest of all in chapter 13.

In the first four verses he says some absolutely devastating stuff in three key areas of church life:‑ what you say, what you know, what you do.

What you say. The Corinthians were a congregation who enjoyed using the gift of tongues. The ability to speak unknown languages through the direct inspiration of the Spirit. They felt that not only did they speak in human languages (the tongues of men) but that they were able to express the language of heaven itself (the tongues of angels). There was such a buzz of excitement around this church over the great things the Holy Spirit was doing amongst them through the gifts of inspired speech. Is Paul impressed? He looks these Corinthians in the eye and says ‑ Do you know that pagan temple down the road which is so noisy as the priests and people hit their gongs, ring their bells, and make a noise to get the attention of their deaf and sleepy gods? Well, that’s what you people at Corinth are like. There’s an absence of love in the congregation. And when God listens to your worship its no more than a pagan noise to Him. It sounds wonderful to you and offensive to him, without love.

What you know. In verse two we’re told that these people had the gift of prophecy and faith. Wouldn’t you like that sometimes? To have people in the church who could answer your deepest questions with wisdom and insight inspired by the Spirit. Wouldn’t it be great to have people who could trust God so firmly in certain situations that great and mountainous problems could be overcome in next to no time? Oh to be able to say in a counselling situation ‑ Your problem sister is that at 6:30 last evening you stole some money from your husband’s wallet. Or to be able to so trust God in faith as to say, By this time next week every last penny of the King’s Centre’s debts will have been paid off. And then to go about life in absolute confidence and to show no surprise when it happened as you knew it would by faith. Isn’t that kind of thing a vital sign in the life of a church? Paul looks at these Corinthians in the eye and says, You have these things but you haven’t got love, and You are nothing. He says “I” but he means “you”.

What you do. (verse 3) He uses two magnificent illustrations of sacrifice. Here’s someone who gives all he has to the poor; here’s someone who surrenders to death in the flames. One gives away his substance, the other his life. From a distance it looks stunning and admirable. But if those people are not living in love relationships with their fellow Christians they gain nothing.

Do you see ‑ Love’s Core Importance. It doesn’t matter how gifted your speech, how deep your knowledge, how impressive your activity, if you are consistently disobedient in the area of love ‑ you are nothing, you gain nothing, you are simply a din in the ear of God.

2. LOVE’S CONTINUED EXISTENCE verses 8‑13

One of the signs of an infantile mind‑set is you lose sight of what’s really important. When I was a young lad I pestered my Mum and Dad for months that I might get a model fort and an army of toy soldiers for Christmas. The great day came and I got just what I wanted. When the initial excitement had died down I spent the whole of the day playing with a tiny little catapult made out of a bent hair grip and an elastic band. I couldn’t appreciate the value of the main gift and I couldn’t understand what would really be of lasting significance.

Have you ever tried to play rounders at a picnic when some doting father insists on letting his three year old play. He thinks we’ll all be just thrilled to have his offspring join in the game with us. The bat is passed to the little monster. He picks it up. Refuses to part with it. Holds on to it for three minutes. Screams and screams when it’s taken off him. Five minutes later it happens all over again and the stupid father looks round approvingly at the other people assuming that they are overjoyed at this marvellous display of behaviour in the light of his life. The little one has no idea of what’s important. He has no idea what the gift is for. He doesn’t care much about the impact of his behaviour on anyone else. It’s to be hoped that when he becomes a man he’ll put away those infantile ways of behaving.

In the midst of all the marvellous features of the life of the Christian church in the world there are only three things that matter. Faith, hope and love. (verse 13a). Whenever the true Gospel brings a human being to new life in Christ it produces those three powerful realities. Trust in Christ and His Cross, hope in the eternal future of God’s kingdom (heaven and glory), and love ‑ love for God and love for His people. Everything else is a lesser thing. Tongues will cease, the gift of knowledge will pass away, prophecy is only partial and will give way to full reality. The glorious and great realities of the work of God in a human being are faith, hope and love. The Corinthians were more excited by the hair grip catapult than by the fort. And that’s infantile.

THE sign that you’ve been taught by the Spirit is that you value faith in the past work of Christ, hope in the coming of Christ, and love for the person of Christ above everything else in the world, no matter how gifted you are and how marvellous you think your church is.

And amongst these love is the greatest. One day you’ll stop believing, because faith will give way to sight; you’ll stop hoping because the eternal future of glory you hope for will have arrived in your eternal present. God never has faith, God never hopes, He needs neither. BUT love will never come to an end because God is love and as long as God exists love will be the crowning glory of all eternity.

THE vital sign of health in the church is that we value and practice and nurture love amongst ourselves as the highest and best thing. If anything becomes more important than maintaining and developing love, then it’s a sign that you’re infantile, you don’t understand the ABC of God’s purposes.

3. LOVE’S CHARACTERISTIC EXPRESSION verses 4‑8a

Read from The Message verses 4‑8a.

Let's take three sample characteristics since we don’t have time to go through every word.

Patience. It carries a meaning something like ‑ a long time before boiling over. But with whom do you need to be patient? Surely, it’s with people who are enough to make your blood boil. With people who do or say something which makes you want to let your temper, your anger, your simmering resentment boil over. Sure you can be patient til the cows come home with the people who are always trying to give you your own way. the test is how do you conduct yourself in a relationship with someone in the church who hurts you. How real is your love then? What do you do with the anger which boils up after the hurt? What do you do with that rising spirit that makes you want to get back at them, put them in their place, make them look small, divorce yourself from them. What do you do then. If there’s an absence of love at that point then when you bring your worship to God it’s nothing but the noise of pagan gongs. It doesn’t matter how sacrificially you serve the church, without patience ‑ you gain nothing. That’s pretty serious isn’t it? But, of course, it’s got to be true for this reason. You say you love the Lord Jesus Christ and that you want to be like Him. Well, how patient has HE been with you over the years. Where would YOU be tonight if He’d treated you as your deserve? Patience is a choice. Patience is a spiritual attitude you bring your heart to for the sake of your Lord Jesus.

It keeps no record of wrongs This Lord Jesus you say has saved you and whom you love, how long is His list of things you’ve done to offend Him. How long is His memory for all the times you’ve broken his law, dishonoured his name, failed to glorify his person. He remembers your sins no more. As far as the East is from the West, so far has he removed our transgressions from us. How did he wipe his memory clean from the record of your sins. By dipping it in His own blood shed on the Cross. He carried your sins in His own body up to the Cross and the record is wiped clean and is kept clean by daily acts of forgiveness on his part. If you have a list of all those things that people have done to you, and are holding it against them, allowing it to fracture a relationship or keep you from Christian ministry ‑ you’re a noisy, empty, gong.

It is not puffed up. Phooseeo. Used seven times in the Greek NT, six of those times in 1 Corinthians. It’s the balloon imagery. Here’s a bit of limp unimpressive red rubber. You fill it full of air under pressure and hang it from the door and suddenly it looks pretty handsome. But there’s no real substance. It’s puffed up. It thinks of itself more grandly than it ought to think. There will be some of you here with a critical spirit. Really, those people, those elders, that pastor, that volunteer ‑ he’s so dreadful; she’s so unbearable. Where does your critical spirit come from? How is it that you can look down from your exalted position upon these other pathetic Christians and continue to hold them blameworthy, rejecting them? It’s got to come from self‑inflation. You feel high and mighty enough to look down on them because you’re puffed up. You really don’t know much do you about the heart which says, To me who was the chief of sinners God showed mercy. Oh you can say it in your head, but not from that proud heart which sits in judgement. If you have a puffed up spirit which consistently looks down in rejecting judgement upon this one or that one, you’re a noisy gong.

We say that we’re in love with the One who humbled himself to the death of the Cross that He might show compassionate mercy to the most obnoxious of people. If ever we’re tempted to strut our stuff, our inflated sense of dignity, our feelings of who do they think they are to treat me like that ‑ if you’re ever tempted to feel like that; if you’re feeling like that now, take a long slow look at the Prince of glory dying for you. Love is not puffed up. It chooses to humble itself for the sake of the one who has offended me. It chooses not to give the devil a foothold in my simmering anger. It chooses to seek reconciliation, it chooses to reach out a hand, to risk godly confrontation. Love is a choice. Jesus made the choice for you. THE vital sign that you belong to His Body, and that this Body belongs to Him ‑ is this kind of love.