Sermon Tone Analysis

“Pursue love, and earnestly desire the spiritual gifts, especially that you may prophesy.

For one who speaks in a tongue speaks not to men but to God; for no one understands him, but he utters mysteries in the Spirit.

On the other hand, the one who prophesies speaks to people for their upbuilding and encouragement and consolation.

The one who speaks in a tongue builds up himself, but the one who prophesies builds up the church.

Now I want you all to speak in tongues, but even more to prophesy.

The one who prophesies is greater than the one who speaks in tongues, unless someone interprets, so that the church may be built up.” [1]

Reciprocity is a mark of spirituality.

By that, I mean that each Christian is responsible both to receive ministry from others and to invest service in others.

Christians are not to live as though each person is an island, but rather Christians are to recognise and embrace the need to serve one another in love.

That reciprocal aspect of the Faith is the focus of the message today, and in order to get a handle on our purpose in the church, I ask you to consider the words of the Apostle to the Gentiles.

In his first letter to the Corinthian congregation, Paul wrote of our purpose.

Though he did not specifically say that we were to serve one another in the passage under consideration, he did nevertheless emphasise reciprocity in service.

THE OVERARCHING PRINCIPLE — “Pursue love…” Paul begins this portion of his instruction with an admonition to seek love—and to do so ardently.

This is a call both to love and to seek what reveals love.

It is a plea for the people of God to see the best in one another, even as they interact with one another.

One translation commands, “Be constantly pursuing this love, earnestly endeavouring to acquire it.”

[2] Another asserts, “Go after a life of love as if your life depended on it—because it does.”

[3]

The preacher urging his congregation toward love is the stuff of caricature.

The world ridicules the ubiquitous emphasis on love that characterises the Christian message.

We are compelled to speak of love since love is integral to our Faith.

God is presented as loving; accordingly, we are taught from earliest days that “God is love” [1 JOHN 4:8].

All that we are and all that we do as Christians is coloured by God’s love for His people.

John reveals the impact of God’s love in the life of the Christian when he writes, “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God.

Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.

In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him.

In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.

No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.

“By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

And we have seen and testify that the Father has sent his Son to be the Saviour of the world.

Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God.

So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.

God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him.

By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the Day of Judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world.

There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear.

For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love.

We love because he first loved us.

If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen.

And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother” [1 JOHN 4:7-21].

Love is from God, because God is love; even so, those who know God reflect the love of God toward others.

In the Greek tongue, different words are translated into our English tongue by the word “love.”

One of those words, éros, is not actually found in our New Testament; the word represents sexual love.

Another word translated into English as “love” is the word phílos; it is used of feelings for a dear friend or family member.

The third word is that which is used in our text—agápe.

The word connotes unconditional love—love without consideration of the object.

Agápe is a selfless form of love that is focused outward, instead of being focused solely on the “self.”

Paul invested two chapters providing instruction concerning the use of spiritual gifts.

In CHAPTER 12, he spoke of the variety of gifts and how this diversity reflected the multifaceted character of Christ as revealed through His Body, the church.

In CHAPTER 13, he provided a parenthesis as he spoke of the character of love itself.

Reading this chapter, we begin to understand what love looks like.

Now, at the outset of CHAPTER 14, the Apostle to the Gentiles begins by insisting on the need to pursue love ardently as the guiding principle of all that is done as a Christian.

It is fascinating that we agree that in our interactions with outsiders we should demonstrate love, though too often the love demonstrated is strained and even contrived.

The call we have received as Christians is to love as Christ loved, giving ourselves for the benefit of the world and making the effort to both inform others of the love of Christ and to reveal the love of Christ to all people.

Despite agreement that we are to love the world as Christ did, declaring His mercy and calling on all to accept His grace, yet we are too often unclear about pursuing love within the Body of Christ.

The Christian that truly understands the love of God is an individual who recognises that the gifts God has bestowed were given for the benefit of others.

The loving Christian is an involved Christian, investing the spiritual gifts entrusted to build up fellow believers.

Speaking bluntly so that no one will misunderstand, the uninvolved Christian is an unloving Christian at worst, and at best an ignorant Christian.

I am unapologetic in emphasising that if you imagine your gift consists of hurrying the preacher along through grumbling about the length of the sermon, or that your gift is being present at every potluck of the church, you are actually demonstrating a lack of comprehension of the love that God has invested in you.

God’s love—the gifts He entrusted to you—is for the benefit of His Body.

The profession of an uninvolved individual rings hollow because he demonstrates no interest in the welfare of the Body of Christ.

You cannot honour God with a love that is divided between multiple interests.

“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other” [MATTHEW 6:24], is one of Jesus’ poignant sayings.

While it is true that Jesus specifically spoke of the conflict that arises between being captive to the materialism that characterises the world and service to Him, it does no violence to His words to include in the application condemnation of any aspect of life that threatens focused service to Him and to His people.

The gifts He has given to His saints were given so that they could be exercised in love to benefit His people.

I remind you that love is an action, not a feeling.

Love is not a passive concept; rather it is active.

In DEUTERONOMY 6:4, Moses pens what has become known to pious Jews as the Shema Prayer: “Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one.”

He quickly follows that prayer with the impact that knowledge should have in the life of one who follows the Lord God.

“You shall love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might” [DEUTERONOMY 6:5].

He then continues by pointing out that total love will lead the one who loves to instruct his family and to live out the divine precepts that flow from the mind of God.

This concept that love is active is repeated in DEUTERONOMY 11:1.

“You shall therefore love the LORD your God and keep his charge, his statutes, his rules, and his commandments always.”

This concept of love for God leading to action is iterated elsewhere in that same book.

In DEUTERONOMY 10:12, 13, this command to love God totally, is repeated with a slightly different twist.

“What does the LORD your God require of you, but to fear the LORD your God, to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the LORD, which I am commanding you today for your good?”

The principle to remember is that loving God is equated with serving God.

I have taken extra time to focus on these verses so that we can absorb the knowledge that the love God expects of His people is never passive—it is always active.

“God so loved the world, that He gave…” [JOHN 3:16].

God’s love is active; the love of God led Him to be involved, to give His life because of us.

Just so, the love of Christ revealed through us will be seen in what we do.

We have been conditioned to think in terms of love being defined as a feeling, or in terms of expressing love through words alone.

However, love demands action.

Referring to the text before us, we recognise that the pursuit of love will lead us “earnestly [to] desire the spiritual gifts.”

SEEK GOD’S GIFTS — “Earnestly desire the spiritual gifts…” We who are Christians are to welcome spiritual gifts.

In fact, because we love one another and because we love the Body of Christ, we are to desire the spiritual gifts.

This does not necessarily mean that we are to seek the presence of the various gifts in our own life; it means that we are to long for the spiritual gifts to be evidenced and to be exercised within the Body of Christ.

Do you actually long for the Spirit to be at work among us?

What would it mean should the Spirit be actively at work within a congregation?

I have been privileged to be present when God moved in revival.

I have been privileged to stand in holy fire as the Spirit of God touched many souls, bringing sinners to repentance toward God and faith in the Risen Son of God and bringing Christians to commitment—intense allegiance and compelling devotion to Christ Jesus the Lord.

I have witnessed His power to unite a congregation in love to work together, and I can honestly say that one who has witnessed such movement of the Spirit can never again be satisfied with the status quo.

What would the presence of the Spirit—in full demonstration of His power—look like among us?

The Apostle has answered that question by noting what occurred among some of the churches to which he wrote.

According to the Word of God, among us would be many who declared, “Jesus is Lord” [1 CORINTHIANS 12:3], if the Spirit were to be permitted to move in power.

I know that the Spirit of God working in our midst would glorify the Lord Jesus, and I know that we would share in that glory [2 CORINTHIANS 3:8].

Where the Spirit works mightily, I know that His people experience unusual freedom in life and in worship [2 CORINTHIANS 3:17].

I have no doubt that as the Spirit reveals His presence among us, we will witness miracles [GALATIANS 3:5], and we will not need to manufacture explanations for what we witness.

Where the Spirit of God works, there is supernatural unity [EPHESIANS 4:3], and “the fruit of the Spirit—love, joy peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control” [GALATIANS 5:22, 23]—will be seen in ever-greater measure.

I know that where the Spirit dwells in power, God’s people will address “one another in psalms and hymns and spiritual songs,” as we each “make melody to the Lord with all our heart” [EPHESIANS 5:18].

When the Spirit of God works in power in our midst, there will be an attitude of prayer at all times [see EPHESIANS 6:18].