Sermon: 1 Cor 13 - 16

Good evening all!

As I will be preaching at Sanctuary tomorrow, there will be a sermon here instead of the usual blog. If you're a Sanctuary member, be warned that here there be spoilers!

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1 Cor 13-16: Love – the Crucial ingredient

Houston, we’ve had a problem . . . with the roster. It’s a fairly minor problem, and it’s one I can actually fix today. The problem is that we’ve missed a sermon on 1 Corinthians somewhere, and so we’re actually 2 chapters behind. No problem, because today I’ll simply speak on 4 chapters instead of 2!

(pray)

Picture this: You are a flight controller looking after a mission to the moon. A few hours ago your measured, organized life suddenly went to pot. Something has exploded on the spaceship, and you’ve made a disturbing discovery . .

(cue DVD)

The * figure of 45 hours represents the amount of breathing oxygen in the tanks. Most of the crew thought that this was the main problem.

In the same way, over the last few weeks we have seen how the * Corinthian church thought that the main issue was the gifts of the Holy Spirit, and therefore took any opportunity, fair or foul, to exercise those.

But * John Aaron’s realization was that although breathing oxygen was important, power was * more important – * Every system in the space craft ran on electricity, and without it the astronauts couldn’t breathe, communicate, operate equipment. In short, electricity under girded everything that the spacecraft and its crew did – and without it, the bald fact was that they would die.

In the same way, although the Holy Spirit’s * gifts are important to Christians, the critical factor in a Christian’s life, and even more so in a church’s life is * LOVE – without it, we may as well shut up shop now and distribute the funds amongst ourselves. Without love, evangelism is pointless. Without love, Social concern is nothing more than being nice. Without love, Kid’s clubs, youth groups and beach missions are a pointless waste of time and effort. Love is the * crucial ingredient to the Christian life, and without it, we are nothing. Although the passages we are examining today go on to other topics, I have given this talk the title “Love, the crucial ingredient,” because it is the starting point without which everything else is worthless.

1 Cor 13 is one of the best known chapters in the Bible. I believe most of us have heard it being abused many times. Did I say “Abused”? Yes, I did! It is abused every time you hear it read in isolation, without understanding the passages around it. This includes, I am sorry to say, nearly every time it’s read at a Christian’s wedding. It includes a plaque we used to hang in the toilet at home. It even includes a well-known printing of the Good News Bible – “The Greatest is Love”.

When you hear this passage read on its own, it sounds pretty nice. It * isn’t. When you read it all together and place this passage in its context, it’s * not romantic poetry – it’s a desperate last ditch effort to save a church from complete self-destruction!

The previous chapter has been discussing the use of Spiritual gifts in Corinth, which was anything but spiritual. People were seeing their spiritual worth in terms of the gifts they have been given, for example treating a person with Prophecy as if he was worth more than a lowly administrator. Paul sees this as unacceptable, and in the last chapter he strongly states that this attitude has to go.

But he can’t stop here. Let’s try an experiment – I command you * not to think of pink elephants!

Who here thought of a pink elephant straight away? Probably most of you. A common trap we fall in to is to spend a lot of our time focusing on where we don’t want to go.

But Paul is smarter than that. He recognizes that it’s not enough to tell people what not to do, they need to know what TO do. And so we * have his response:

* DON’T make Spiritual gifts your main yardstick. They are gifts, not markers of your standing before God.

* DO focus on love. Love is paramount, and is behind everything the Christian does.

But Paul goes further, and these famous words make much more impact on us when we remember the situation he speaks to.

Some people in the Corinthian church (and indeed, in churches today) measure themselves by speaking in tongues – but Paul points out that “If I * speak in the tongues of men and angels, but * have not love, I achieve * nothing more than annoying people with the racket, like fingernails down a blackboard or a guitar with one string out of tune.” My own version, of course!

Other people set great store on prophecy, wisdom or faith – again, this is visible in many churches today – but Paul says that “If I have the * gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a * faith that can move mountains, but have * not love, I * am worthless.”

Still others were relying on their generosity and concern for those less fortunate than themselves, or on their commitment – ouch, I think that’s the one where Paul has ME in his sights! But Paul dismisses this too: “If I * give all I possess to the poor and * surrender my body to the flames but * have not love, I * get nowhere!”

Do you get the point? It’s tempting to see these passages as attacking Charismatic Christians, but it’s not discriminating; it gets all of us! It’s a bit of a paradox – if you’re comparing yourself with another Christian or church on anything except love, you’re wrong! And if you’re comparing on love, well, you’re not really being loving anyway, so you’re still wrong!
But * what is love? It was difficult enough to define in Paul’s day, and back then they at least had four different words, so you knew roughly what he meant. Today, the word love can refer to your feelings or your actions, and can be used in so many ways - for example, “I love Holdens” means something different to “I love my daughters,” and different again to “I love Char Siu Beef with fried rice”. So rather than produce a long dictionary definition, Paul * gives some examples of love in action. As I go through this list, replace the word “Love” with your name, and ask yourself if what follows is a truthful statement.

* Love is Patient – meaning that it puts up with the actions and attitudes of other people for extended periods of time.

* Love is Kind – meaning that it does good things for others no matter what.

* Love does not Envy – meaning that it cares more about people than it does about what they own.

* Love does not Boast – meaning that it doesn’t seek to make itself seem important to other people.

* Love is not proud – meaning that it recognizes that in God’s eyes, it is no more and no less important than everyone else.

* Love is not rude – meaning that it chooses not to be offensive.

* Love is not self-seeking – meaning that it does not do what is right for itself and forget about everyone else.

* Love is not easily angered – This one is pretty self-explanatory.

* Love keeps no record of wrongs – meaning that it doesn’t remember what people have done or said to use against them later.

* Love does not delight in evil – meaning that it doesn’t find it funny or satisfying when someone gets what they deserve.

* Love rejoices in the truth – meaning that the facts of the matter are more important than whether or not it’s a great story.

* Love always protects – meaning that it puts itself in harms way for the sake of those weaker than itself.

* Love always trusts – meaning that even when others would say “he’s proved himself untrustworthy,” it gives another chance.

* Love always hopes – meaning that when everyone else gives up, love is still in there encouraging.

* Love always perseveres – meaning that it’s in it for the long haul.

* And here’s the ultimate test of love – LOVE NEVER FAILS.

How many of those statements were true? Two? Three? THIS is how we need to be measuring ourselves. And notice that it doesn’t say “is more patient than others,” it says “is patient.” Paul isn’t after us comparing ourselves to each other, he wants to see us thinking in absolute terms. Not “am I more loving than Brendan?”, simply “Am I loving?”

I wonder what impact it may have on us if we were to go through a “love checklist” every day? So we’re going to have homework. Now, I’m not going to check this, it’s between you and God, but it could be good to discuss it with someone you trust – perhaps your husband, your wife, your best friend or your mentor.

Paul then puts the previous issue of Spiritual gifts – especially the outwardly visible gifts of tongues and prophecy – into the context of love, because once we understand what love is, and can honestly say we have applied it to our lives, then issues like these become a lot easier to manage.

Now, for those who don’t know what we mean when we talk about tongues or prophecy, I think that it is useful to take a moment to define these and understand exactly what they mean.

When we talk about * speaking in tongues, there are two extreme ideas about what it may mean:
1) * One idea is that speaking in tongues is talking to God in an unknown language. Some suggest that the first verse of Chapter 13 hints that these are the languages spoken by angels, but at any rate they are not understood by the speaker or by those around the speaker.
2) * The other idea is that speaking in tongues refers to the miracle that occurred in the beginning of Acts, where people from many different language groups heard the Disciples speaking fluently in their own languages, despite the fact that these uneducated men had never learned these languages.

Chapter 14 seems to imply the first idea, but it certainly does not automatically rule out the second. Either way, this issue is a hot potato in the Church, and has led to bitter debate for many years. Unfortunately, over history, this issue has divided us and split us again and again. Even within our own church it has split us. It is common to hear Charismatic Christians say that if you don’t speak in tongues, the Holy Spirit isn’t living in you. On the other hand, more conservative Christians will counter by saying that the speaking in tongues heard in Charismatic churches is fake, something people do to make themselves seem spiritual.

Do you know what the tragedy of this is? It’s simple. If we truly took chapter 13 seriously, then THIS ISSUE WOULD NOT BE A PROBLEM. I will say again, THIS ISSUE WOULD NOT BE A PROBLEM.

The ENTIRE ISSUE is to be handled with love, BOTH WAYS. Say Harry speaks in tongues – fine. He is responsible for loving Sally, who does not. Equally, she is responsible for loving Harry! Of course, they may never come to complete agreement, but if they practice a humble, loving attitude, they won’t be comparing themselves with each other, and that means that this issue WILL NOT DIVIDE THEM. It is time we in the church, on both sides of this issue stopped being arrogant, proud and self seeking. BY THIS SHALL ALL MEN KNOW THAT YOU ARE MY DISCIPLES – IF YOU HAVE LOVE ONE FOR ANOTHER. Red letters!

One thing is important to note – Paul accepts the value of tongues, and is quite clear that some find this gift of benefit. Verse 4 of chapter 14 tells us that speaking in tongues builds up the speaker. But whilst he does not devalue this gift, he points out that another gift, * Prophecy, is of value to everyone present.

When most people hear the word prophecy, they generally think of the * future. God has knowledge of the future, and if the situation demands it, he sometimes reveals it. But there is * more to prophecy than foretelling – much more.

Prophecy is * telling others what God has spoken to you. Again, there are different ideas of what this may mean. To some, it may * involve interpreting God’s word in the Bible and applying it to a certain situation. Other Christians say that it is * God directly giving a person a word of knowledge. Which is right? I believe both. I believe that at least once, God has spoken directly to my mind. But for me, he speaks more often through His revealed word, the Bible.

There is a subtle but important difference between the gift of teaching, and the gift of prophecy. Teaching gives people general principles that can always be applied; prophecy is about specific situations in which God speaks.

It’s also worth mentioning the difference between Prophecy and wisdom. Both are gifts listed in the Bible, and both are important. Wisdom uses human skill and intellect to process ideas through to a logical conclusion. Prophecy takes information from God, and uses that to get His perspective on a situation. Put another way, Wisdom answers the question “Will this work?” Prophecy answers the question “Is this what God wants?”. Which is more important? Like the wings of an aircraft – the one which isn’t there!

The Principle is simple. Paul says we are to eagerly desire God’s gifts, and when we ask God – remember, if we demand them, they’re not a gift – we should concentrate more on the gifts which benefit a greater number of people.

We are running out of time for this talk, so I won’t go into too much detail on chapter 15, which is about the resurrection. I will content myself with a simple, but profound statement.

Paul says that *the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead was REAL, and it was PHYSICAL. If it is not, Paul says that Christianity itself is completely invalid! So don’t let anyone pull a snow job on you and say that the resurrection is “a story”, “a metaphor” or “a hoax”. Does it matter? You bet it does. Either it is true or it is false. If it is false, don’t bother being a Christian. But IT IS TRUE, and that means we have to respond to the greatest demonstration that God could give that He is who He says He is.

Chapter 16 is interesting and relevant to each of us as we try to get inside the mind of Paul, but we are now out of time, and I want to ensure that we focus on the main points of today. I encourage you to take the time to read this yourself.

As the band come up for the last song, I want us to finish by checking over today’s progression of ideas:

1) We should not compare Spiritual gifts (or anything else!) with other Christians.

2) Love is everything. Without love, we are useless.

3) In this context, Spiritual gifts (including tongues and prophecy) should be used to benefit the church.

4) The resurrection is real and non-negotiable.

Remember your homework – the Greatest is Love!