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If you were here last week you will have heard
Samuel’s clear lead in to this passage. Paul is writing to a young church in a
pagan Greek culture. They are looking to understand what they can transfer from
their existing culture and what is distinctly different about being a
Christian. One of the key differences in the Christian Good News is that God
engages with us. He does not remain aloof and separate. He invites us to turn
from our existing ways, from rebellion against himself and offers forgiveness
and new life. God joins us where we are by his Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is
the most significant element of the Christian life. Christianity is not what
you do or what you say but it is about developing a deeper, fuller relationship
with Jesus. And you can only do that when the Holy Spirit is at work in your
spirit.
You receive the Holy Spirit
when you become a Christian. You are immersed in the Holy Spirit at new birth
just as you are immersed in water at baptism.
The Corinthian Christians
discovered that God gave them all sorts of ‘Spirituals’ or Spiritual gifts as
we call them. And they went to town with
them, and why not? We need to explore them and use them as that is what God
wants to bless us with. Paul is writing here to clarify that there is a need
for order and understanding in this new area of experience. When you discover the Holy Spirit you want to
do all of the gifts, to be all the roles. That is what a child does, one moment
a pilot, next a racing driver, next World Cup footballer, then a war hero. But
children need to grow and develop the dreams in line with the will of the
Saviour. Last week we looked at the
purpose of the spirituals – to build the church and work together in unity as a
body and the diversity – each has different gift, not superior or inferior but
put together as a team by God a complete church, able together to express the
person of Christ to our community. Then Paul says this:
READ 1Corinthians 13
This is the most read and
least understood passage of Scripture. I have read at the funeral of my aunt
and it is frequently used in weddings. It spawned a whole raft of posters. I seem to
remember London Underground did a number about good practice on the tube - offering
your seat to another passenger, making room for others in the car, not littering
and so on. This is the only one I could find
This is a good place to start because Love is not a sentimental feeling,
an erotic flush or doomed to disappointment. Nor is it easy and free. It is
expressed in action. It is not what you think or feel , it is what you do and
say.
But let’s begin at the
beginning:
And now I will show you the most excellent way.
Paul id not saying forget
‘Spirituals’ or Spiritual gifts as they are called, he is saying that if you
want excellence, this is it. The church in
We often think other churches
have better preachers, better prophecy, better buildings, better everything and
some of you are keen to tell me of good ideas you have picked up visiting them,
but copying others activities, while sometimes is very creative, it is not the
most excellent way. What is follows.
You see we could have the
best charismatic gifts, we could be the most generous church, we could be the
great martyr church, we could have a wonderful worship group, actually, I think
we have, but if we don’t have love, we are nothing. Worse, we sound awful! Our
hypocrisy, our pride, our envy is ugly. Church is not about programmes, it is a
bout love. And so the most excellent way is love.
Since God is love, that
church, which is the
So, you can parade all the
spirituals you like but without love you are an empty charade, a hollow man,
faking spirituality and not actually having the spirit of God. It comes as a
bit of a shock to realise that spiritual gifts can be exhibited by godless
people. If we are not using the gifts God gives us to love and encourage others
to love as Jesus loved, then we are playing church but not being church.
So he pauses to consider what
love is in the context of church. He does so using 15 expressions of love 7 of
which are positives and 8 of which are negative.
Love is patient,
Love is kind.
Love does not envy,
Love does not boast,
Love is not proud.
Love is not rude,
Love is not self-seeking,
Love is not easily angered,
Love keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil
Love rejoices with the truth.
Love always
protects,
Love always trusts,
Love always hopes,
Love always perseveres.
Look carefully where he
starts:
Love
is patient,
We live in an age when we
want it now, so we abandon God’s way and have sex before marriage and make a
mess of relationships.
We use our credit card to
take the waiting out of wanting, so we are up to our necks in debt.
We want our young people to
be mature and more spiritually minded than we were or maybe are and we end up
putting them off Jesus.
We want others to be doing
the setting-up and getting ready and are impatient when things aren’t ready for
us.
We all want patience but we
want it now. We want a church where the spiritual growing pains are in the
past. We want an easy life. But God has plans to develop us as a church . How
long should we wait?
Joseph waited 13 yrs, Abraham waited 25 yrs,
Moses waited 40 yrs, Jesus waited 30 yrs. If God is making you wait, you're in
good company. Patience is tested when our frustration boils over. Patience goes
back and gets stuck in when church is not all happening, not like up the road’s
church. It seeks God in prayer and waits on him to answer and to lead. The
lesson of Joseph was that he did 13 years as a prison trusty well, not knowing
if he would ever be free. Abraham clung to God’s promise. Moses married and
settled down to raising a family in Sinai. Jesus we are told in Matthew 2:51 Then he
went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them(his parents)…. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in
favour with God and man. If Jesus grew in wisdom in the routine of a
carpenter/ Stone mason’s workshop and home, Follow him in living in the
routines and growing in spiritual wisdom.
Next time something is not
happening to your liking, remember, God wants you to love by being patient!
Love
is kind.
Now we have made this a sort
of sentimental idea but the Greek is not at all like that. In fact it appears
either to be a word Paul created or one he picked from the vernacular. It does
not appear in any other manuscripts , except among Christians after this
letter. It has the strength of being
useful, to act benevolently. So it is action not feeling. James illustrates
this in James 2:15-16
Suppose a brother or a sister is without clothes and
daily food. If one of you says to them, “Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,”
but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?
Kindness is not thinking
about someone in need, it is acting out the compassion. The church today is the
national feeding centre for the poor because it is not primarily bothered with
the politics of poverty, it has to reach out to help. Then , up to the neck in
care it challenges our political masters to a fairer more compassionate
society.
The church is a collection of
people who have all the cares and joys and struggles of life. But the church is
only living out the good news of salvation when , like our Saviour, we have
compassion on each other and take action. The feeding of the 5000 was Jesus
answer to his own compassion. Love was kind and provided a meal for everyone.
But he rejected the same process to provide food for himself.
So God’s people provide for
one another. That has been exhibited in this church but you won’t notice it if
you are not alert because those who give do not trumpet their giving or demand
appreciation. Whether it is food or heating or financial help or taking a
friend to a hospital visit, making a thoughtful phone call, sharing tools,
expertise or whatever, love is all of those things because it acts
sacrificially rather than feels an emotion and does nothing.
What love is not is a whole
raft of things that we are tempted to do
in church
Love does not envy,
This follows on from last
week. Another person’s gift is a gift from God for the church. So is your gift.
It is just as valuable and what is more important what God gives you. It is
extremely rude to complain about a gift!
Love does not boast,
So if you are not envying another’s gift, you are probably boasting
about yours! Look, we are all suspect
here. We want to be special so we just have to exaggerate our role
Love is not proud.
The church is the company of
people who have been saved by grace alone, not because anything we have done or
are doing. Our gifts are for the building up of the church, not ourselves. You
are not superior because you behave more correctly than others, or have better
Bible knowledge or read or listen to the right books or videos or have the
correct theology. Love is not proud because it wants to build others up, it
sees your brothers and sisters as having received the same grace as you and
longing to share the love, joy and peace that comes from an intimate
relationship with the eternal creator
Love is not rude,
Pride, boasting and envy
frequently lead us to treating others with less respect than they deserve.
Love is not self-seeking,
This maybe obvious but our
society sees everything in terms of self-seeking and we are deeply infected.
Marriage has become a contract for what you get out of it; jobs are for what
you can earn, friends are for your pleasure, to be dropped when they are an
embarrassment. You are not saved to be self seeking. Jesus went to the cross
because he loved you so much he would rather die than lose your friendship. He
hung out with some pretty embarrassing people, prostitutes, collaborators,
political extremists, also members of the ruling elite in both political and
religious affairs.
If you came to church just to
receive good worship and good teaching and someone to listen to you, you have
missed the point. This is a worship event where we give thanks in word and by
action in caring for one another.
Love is not easily angered,
Temperament does play a part
in the demands love makes on you. Like it or not some of us are more
quick-tempered than others. But on one hand that should not be a reason for
pride for those who ‘never lose their cool’ nor should our weaknesses be an
excuse. Those of us who are quick-tempered have to battle the temptation because love is not easily angered.
Tiredness, stress and other factors do affect us and rather than pointing the
finger we should work together to prevent overreaction to what is happening.
Sometimes we are rather good at provoking another to lose it by thoughtless or
even deliberate unpleasantness. We are the body of Christ and when one part is
struggling we all struggle. Prayer, compassion and encouragement to turn away
from anger are our correct responses.
Love keeps no record of wrongs.
He’s always like that… I
remember, 20 years ago…. God forgives and has promised to remember our sins no
more forever, but there are plenty of us who are cataloguing each other’s
weaknesses. Yes, trust means sharing the
risk that others will fail again and again. But you are saved completely. Sin
will ruin your peace but will not cause God to think again. We are to be
like-minded. Tough it will be when your brother sins against you, again, but
Jesus said you must forgive 490 times. If you keep a record that long, you have
not forgiven the first time. That does
not mean we do not observe the cautions necessary for a safe society. DBS
checks are necessary and while we welcome those all open-handedly, we would
place restrictions on anyone on the child-abuse register. Those guilty and repentant would recognise
the logic of that.
Love does not delight in evil
Paul puts that in because we
need to be alert to the natural man’s desire for revenge, for pay-back. I might
remark here that much of our TV watching is entertainment where crime,
immorality, violence and hatred are chief elements. So watch less TV and spend
more time in those things that build relationships. So that rules out most
soaps and rules in programmes like ‘DIY SOS The big build’. But it applies in church
life as well. Gossip looks for titbits of weakness but rarely rejoices in the
good. Pride looks for reasons to put others down, rather than build them up. We
find fault because it is easy to find and it makes us feel superior. Evil is
bad and it should pain us when we hear or see others indulging in sin. The only
person you should talk to about a fault in another person is Jesus and the
person themselves. Never anybody else unless the person at fault has not
repented. The rules about this are in Matthew 18:15-17. Love does not
delight in evil,
Paul continues :
But rejoices with the truth.
We are not miseries who shun
exuberant joy. We have a salvation that is complete and certain, we have a hope
of eternal bliss, we have the presence of the Holy Spirit, we of all people,
have every reason to rejoice. But there is more. Rejoice in the truth. That is what we are here to do this morning,
but I want to encourage you to make it part of your morning start up. Find a
verse of scripture that is telling the good news and rejoice over it.
For example, John 3:16 and
thank God his love has given you eternal life.
1Peter 5:7 and rejoice that
God cares about you;
Romans 5:1 and enjoy the
truth that you have peace with God.
In fact, make a point of
finding some truth to rejoice about to start the day and then remind yourself
of it as the day progresses. Let God’s truth fill your life with thankfulness
and praise. Even a wet Monday!
The old song ‘Count your
blessings’ was intended to direct our thinking this way. The rest of the world
talks of the power of positive thinking, we have real hope, real joy, real
peace, real love. Enjoy!
Love always protects,
Well actually the NIV has
translated a word ‘roofs over’ as protects where it is usually used to mean
‘cover with silence’ or ‘endure patiently’. Which returns us to the beginning –
Love is patient.
Love always trusts,
Trust in God means that when
the church is in an apparent shambles, we need to trust God that he is working
his purpose out. That is the time
to pray and love God’s people.
Love always hopes,
We have a hope, don’t throw
it away because not everything is hunky-dory. Hope is deeper than that. It
hopes when the wind and the tide is against us.
Love always perseveres.
Don’t give up on the church!
Keep praying, keep worshipping, keep attending because the faithful will
receive much blessing. God places us in a fellowship to teach us his character
so that we will be ready for eternity. And I must point out that church is
usually a very positive experience because you are lifted up by the thoughts
and prayers and sharing of our faith and you walk out of here richer than you
arrived. So don’t give up on church!
Look says, Paul, the things
that bother you today, - tongues, prophecy, and so on they are only for time. What will remain is faith hope, love, and
the greatest of these is love. We should be much more concerned with what
we depend on, what we long for and how we love one another than the necessary
processes of life. So if the some part of
church falls over today, our concern is that, faith, hope and love will be exposed as we sort out what
we do. To quote Pope Francis this week
on Twitter “To live by faith means to put
our lives in the hands of God, especially in our most difficult moments” To hope is to set our hearts on knowing God
and to live in his presence, to love is to have the heart of God.
and the greatest of these is love. So develop
love and let it drive your use of the spiritual gifts. So next week Andy Coomar leads us in
examining prophecy and tongues in church in what it does to those who attend
church. The right use of the gifts worked out on the basis of love as expressed
in chapter 14.