The Church - Loving 10/12
Sermon Series: 1st Corinthians – The Church _____________
Text: 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Title: The Church Loved?
Theme: This message is about the necessity, character, permanence and supremacy of love.
Introduction: Something about what Biblical agape love looks like. Is there a hell?
Once upon a time a person was touched by God, and God gave him a priceless gift. This gift was the capacity for love. He was grateful and humble, and he knew what an extraordinary thing had happened to him. He carried it like a jewel and he walked tall and with purpose. From time to time he would show this gift to others, and they would smile and stroke his jewel. But it seemed that they’d also dirty it up a little. Now, this was no way to treat such a precious thing, so the person built a box to protect his jewel. And he decided to show it only to those who would treat it with respect and meet it with reverent love of their own.
Even that didn’t work, for some tried to break into the box. So he built a bigger, stronger box–one that no one could get into–and the man felt good. At last he was protecting the jewel as it should be. Upon occasion, when he decided that someone had earned the right to see it, he’d show it proudly. But they sometimes refused, or kind of smudged it, or just glanced at it disinterestedly.
Much time went by, and then only once in awhile would one pass by the man, the aging man; he would pat his box and say, “I have the loveliest of jewels in here.” Once or twice he opened the box and offered it saying, “Look and see. I want you to.” And the passerby would look and look, and look. And then he would back away from the old man, shaking his head.
The man died, and he went to God, and he said, “You gave me a precious gift many years ago, and I’ve kept it safe, and it is as lovely as the day you gave it to me.” And he opened the box and held it out to God. He glanced in it, and in it was a lizard–an ugly, laughing lizard. And God walked away from him.
Yes, there is a hell.
Lois Cheney, God is no Fool, p. 33-4.
Transition: Our journey through Paul’s letter to the Corinthian Church has been a long and arduous one. We started this trip way back on June 1st talking about the fact that the church has been called. In the preceding weeks we have surveyed almost every aspect of the churches life: both its high and low points. We have now come to what is without a doubt the most famous piece of literature from this portion of God’s word. I suspect that we could close our books and come up with a pretty good approximation of what these 13 verses in Chapter 13 communicate. This passage of scripture though is more than a beautiful poetic picture of what Christian love consists of, it is an argument that without this characteristic built into our character there is little else of value there.
I. The Necessity of Love
a. Giftedness without love is meaningless.
i. Apparently at the core of the problems that the Corinthian church was suffering from was this incredible individual self involvement. Some of the members were more concerned about how they looked, what they could do and how good that they sounded that everything else took a back seat to their own pride. So far in the letter Paul has chided for their belief that they are individually superior because of whom they learned from, for selfishly suing one another and for seeking their own self righteousness at the expense of other believers. Now they have given a hierarchy to the spiritual gifts and some of them are claiming superiority based on that. Paul tells them that this kind of exercise of spiritual gifts is noisy, discordant, and meaningless.
b. Faith and knowledge without love is useless.
i. One of the dangers that are inherent in the academic and ministerial world is the trap that we can fall into where the initial behind our name or our title becomes more important than a life which genuinely points toward Christ.
ii. (Illustration from Ruth)
c. Good intentions without love are worthless.
i. Paul’s statement here about giving all that I have away and delivering my body over be burned seems rather harsh. You would think that this kind of devotion would count for something to God. Maybe it would if there was some system where we earned our way into heaven. Fortunately for most of us this is not how we get into heaven.
ii. This statement reminded me of the people who came to Jesus and wanted to follow Him but with some exceptions – Jesus answer to them is the same answer He gives to us. Complete love – complete devotion is the only item He is interested in.
II. The Character of Love
a. Paul then gives us a list of characteristics by which we can recognize this Godly love.
b. 7 Positive Characteristics (things it is)
i. Patient – not demanding
ii. Kind – not rude or irritable
iii. Joyful in truth – not happy in wrong
iv. Supportive – not resentful or envious
v. Faithful -
vi. Hopeful
vii. Enduring
c. Negative Characteristics (things it is not)
i. Envious
ii. Boastful
iii. Arrogant
iv. Rude
v. Demanding
vi. Irritable
vii. Resentful
viii. Happy in Wrong
d. Having listed all of these character qualities of love it is fair to draw a few conclusions.
i. Love knows how to wait,
1. I am reminded of Peter’s claim in one of his letters that the reason God has not begun the final ending to this chapter of creation is because He is patient and wanting all men to come to a relationship with Him. (2 Peter 3:9) – Harry S. Truman’s 100’s of letters to his wife.
ii. Love knows how to suffer.
1. One of the things that used to always bother me a bit was the fact – not that Jesus had to come and be sacrificed, that makes sense in light of the full revelation of God but – that he had to suffer so in the doing of it. It has always blown my mind that Jesus, maker of all heaven and earth would so allow Himself to the incredible indignities He did. And HE did it on my account, which is incredible.
iii. Love knows how to act –
1. as I studied this passage I could not help but notice how closely love’s attributes mirror the fruit of the Spirit listed in Galatians 6. It seems to me that as we take on the character of sanctification which is ours to claim as shelters of the Holy Spirit the more that we are a people who know how to truly love.
III. The Permanence of Love
a. It outlasts gifts
i. Paul lists tongues, prophecy and special knowledge here but it seems to me he is using specific examples to talk about the general rule. In the eternity that we will experience – in the community of heaven spiritual gifts will no longer be needed but we will still experience and share in love.
b. It is mature
i. I think that love grows like a tree. It takes years and years to begin to understand the significance of the really important things in life. Our relationships with our family members and the commitments that we have kept in spite of the obstacles we faced – that is grown up love – a love that is mature.
c. It is complete
i. We probably all have a few things that we want to ask God when we finally get to see Him face to face. Things that have just never made really good sense to us. Why He designed certain things in certain ways or how He has allowed some of the evil to take place that has occurred. But I have always had a sneaking suspicion that when we get there either the answers to our questions will be obvious or will no longer seem significant. – Paul assures that in that time when all eternity is before us that Love will be the answer to a lot of the incompleteness that we are aware of now.
IV. The Supremacy of Love
a. Out of all that will endure love is the defining factor of all creation.
