Love essential not optional
Text 1 Corinthians 13:1-3 Time 14/09/14 Place Childs Hill Baptist Church
1 Corinthians 13 is one
of the most wonderful chapters in the Bible, one of the most
wonderful pieces anywhere for that matter. When my mother was a child
she learned it off by heart in school. She could still recite it all
the way through I think when she was older. She had learned the King
James Version English, of course, which uses the word charity instead
of love.
“Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not
charity, I am become as sounding brass, or a tinkling cymbal. …
Charity suffereth long, and is kind; charity envieth not; charity
vaunteth not itself, is not puffed up …. “
I particularly remember
when she would come to the part where Paul says
“When I was a child, I spake as a child, I understood as a child, I
thought as a child: but when I became a man, I put away childish
things. For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to
face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am
known.”
Not only is it a
wonderful poem but it is about love. That's why it is often
read at weddings. Some of you will remember George Thomas, the
Speaker of the House of Commons, reading it at the wedding of Prince
Charles and Diana and Tony Blair, the then prime minister, reading it
at the funeral of Princess Diana. It is rightly famous.
It's important to
remember, however, how it was written. It was not written for a
wedding, or a funeral for that matter. No, Paul wrote it to a church
with problems, where there were divisions and where they had wrong
ideas about leadership and how the extraordinary gifts of the Spirit
that were known then are to be used. They really thought, many of
them, that the way to make progress as a Christian was to have more
gifts and the more public those gifts the better. For some it was all
about knowledge. Paul wants to show them a better way, which he does
here and in other places.
We will just look at the
first three verses this morning. In these verses Paul thinks first of
the privileges and gifts a Christian may have and then of the things
he may do to serve God, and says three times over but have not
love – if I lack the essential
ingredient of love – then, and he puts it different ways, first
poetically I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal
then more prosaically, I
am nothing or I gain
nothing. In other words, the
vital ingredient in real faith, in any form of Christian service, the
greatest element is love. Without that, it's useless. It's not true
faith.
Here is a woman who decides to make cupcakes. She gets the butter,
the sugar, the flour, the eggs and a little salt and flavouring and
she carefully follows the recipe but the cupcakes come out looking
completely flat. Why? She didn't put any baking powder in! She missed
out a vital ingredient.
Or think of a woman who longs to be married
and she marries a good looking, kind and rich man. The wedding itself
is a fairy tale, the honeymoon brilliant, the home they move into
fabulous. They may even have children. But there is one fatal flaw,
one thing missing. He doesn't really love her. He doesn't beat her
but she knows and she knows that there is no love in his heart for
her. “I'd take him” says someone. But would you really want that?
No-one would truly.
And
so there are Christians and they may be very clever and they may have
many talents. They seem to work hard and they seem to be very active
and in many ways very spiritual. But there is something missing.
Everything is flat, as it were, because they lack the essential, the
vital ingredient of love. All the ingredients are there bar one.
Here is something for us
to think about then. I want to say three things to you.
1.
Even if you have the most astounding speaking gifts imaginable, if
you lack love, it will leave you hollow and empty
1. Imagine having the most astounding speaking gifts you can imagine
I'm
speaking to Christians now, those who have put their faith in Christ.
One of the characteristics of the church in Corinth was that there
was a lot of speaking in tongues or other languages. Certain people
there had the gift of being able to stand up and give a message to
the congregation directly from God. These messages would come not
just in Greek, the common language of the time, but all sorts of
other languages. Some people today think these were supernatural
languages rather than real human ones. I think they were more likely
to have been real ones. Possibly there were times when a person spoke
in a language they themselves did not understand but it is more
likely to have been a language they understood but most others
didn't, that needed translation. Today the New Testament is complete
and we have no reason to expect direct messages from God in languages
human or divine, though some people believe that when someone jabbers
in what sounds like a real language but is just gibberish
(glossolalia is the technical term) it is a supernatural thing from
God.
Well, regardless of all those
arguments, imagine with me what Paul imagines - If I speak
in the tongues of men and of angels he
says. If I could speak God's Word in many different human languages
or in the language of angels even, in a heavenly language. We don't
know how angels communicate but it may be that they also have a
language or languages, unintelligible to us but that they can
understand perfectly well. I'm sure that they would speak with a
fluency, a clarity and an eloquence beyond anything we have heard
from men. Now imagine that you were so eloquent that you were able to
speak not just with the eloquence of an earthly speaker but with a
heavenly, an angelic eloquence. Imagine that you could preach, say,
in such a masterful way that not only would other human beings sit up
amazed and take notice but even the angels themselves. Imagine that
when you spoke to people about the gospel and tried to explain it
instead of getting tongue tied and feeling you were making a hash of
it, you could speak with an amazing clarity and power that was
utterly convincing.
There
aren't many eloquent preachers today, perhaps, though there are some.
There were certainly some in the past. Let me give you a more or less
random quote from silver tongued Spurgeon, sometimes called the
Prince of Preachers (1894, Sermon #2371)
“Often,
when I come in at the door and my eyes fall on this vast
congregation, I feel a tremor go through me to think that I should
have to speak to you all and be, in some measure, accountable for
your future state. Unless I preach the gospel faithfully and with all
my heart, your blood will be required at my hands. Do not wonder,
therefore, that when I am weak and sick, I feel my head swim when I
stand up to speak to you, and my heart is often faint within me. But
I do have this joy at the back of it all - God does set many sinners
free in this place! Some people reported that I was mourning that
there were no conversions. Brothers and Sisters, if you were all to
be converted tonight, I should mourn for the myriads outside! That is
true, but I praise the Lord for the many who are converted here. …
I am not preaching in vain. I am not despondent about that matter -
liberty is given to the captives and there will be liberty for some
of them, tonight! I wonder who it will be? Some of you young women
over yonder, I trust. Some who have dropped in here, tonight, for the
first time. Oh, may this first opportunity of your hearing the Word
in this place be the time of beginning a new life which shall never
end - a life of holiness, a life of peace with God!”
If
you are a preacher, you long for such eloquence and all of us who
truly believe long to be able to put the gospel over more clearly,
more winningly, more compellingly. Now say you had that gift. “How
wonderful” you may think.
2.
Yet consider how useless it would be without love
If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love,
I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal –
sounding brass and a clanging gong. If
it lacks the vital ingredient love
then it is useless. Gongs and cymbals make great loud noises because
of the way they are constructed. Those who are empty of love are
similarly very loud but empty of anything good.
Some of you like music. You have all sorts of music at home perhaps
but what sort of music is it? Are there any gong concertos or cymbal
sonatas? If you like brass music, it will be trumpets and cornets not
just gongs and cymbals. Often jazz records include a drum solo. You
will hear the cymbals and may be even a gong but it only works with
the snare, the high-hat, the tom toms, the bass and nobody (not even
drummers) wants a recording just of drums. Paul's point then is that
to give real pleasure there has to be texture. Mere loudness is not
enough. There has to be love.
So here is the question. Do you want to preach? Good. Do you want to
be a better witness for Christ? Excellent. But do realise that
without love then it is all of no use. There is no point being a
great preacher, a great evangelist, a great Sunday School teacher, a
great personal worker – if you don't love the people you're
speaking to. Indeed the whole point of these things is to increase
love, they are not ends in themselves. Love must be right at the
heart of all you do. So whenever you think about doing such things,
pray for love. Pray that you will not only be good at it but that
you'll be full of love.
2.
Even if you have the greatest spiritual gifts, if you lack love, it
will leave you as nothing
1. Imagine having the most astounding spiritual gifts you can imagine
Of course, we are not all going to
be preachers or even successful witnesses. But there are all sorts of
spiritual gifts. Paul thinks of some of them here. If I
have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all
knowledge, he says (verse 2) and
if I have a faith that can move mountains.
As
we've said, in those days before the New Testament was complete God
spoke directly through people - sometimes in an unusual language but
often in Greek, a language nearly everyone spoke. Now God doesn't
speak directly today but we have a completed New Testament and we can
read it for ourselves or read it together. Not everyone is good at
reading in public but imagine you had that gift, you could read the
Bible in public and people would find it a blessing to hear you read.
Or
say you were not very good in public but you were able, as Paul puts
it, to fathom all mysteries and all knowledge. People
would come seeking your advice, asking for counselling. If people
were seeking guidance, wondering what to do, they'd come to you for
help. If husbands or wives got into trouble in their marriages they
would come to you for counsel and you'd know just how to help them.
Or perhaps people had hard questions about the Bible – why does it
say what it says here. How do you reconcile these two passages that
seem to contradict? Imagine if you could answer all those sorts of
questions. Say you were a wonderful theologian and a very wise
person.
Or
what if your gift was great faith? What if you were the sort of
person who when you prayed it seemed always to happen. People from
all around would come to you and say, you must pray, because they
knew that when you pray things happen. I'm not sure exactly how it
would work but may be you could pray for sick people to be well or
for money to come in for churches in financial need. Perhaps, you'd
simply be able to say this one is going to get better or the money
will definitely come in for this or that.
Some of us had the opportunity this summer to hear Don Carson. Dr
Carson got his first degree in chemistry
and mathematics then went on to get an M Div from a Baptist Seminary
in Toronto and a PhD in New Testament from Cambridge University. He
has written or edited more than 57 books including the massive The
Gagging of God
which won a 1997 ECPA Christian Book Award and a little book I once
saw called Greek accents: A
student's manual!
One
of my father-in-law's teachers in Westminster Theological Seminary in
the sixties was E J Young. You've probably not heard of him but he
was a Hebrew expert. A former student writes how behind his
knowledge of Hebrew lay a thorough knowledge of many other languages.
A major Arabist of his day said Young could have been the world's
leading Arabist if he'd focused on it. “Many of us were aware” he
says “of Young's ability in languages. In my opinion, no one except
Dr Young and the Lord God knew how many languages he could speak or
read. From my contacts with him, I knew he could read well most of
the modern Western European languages: French, German, Spanish,
Italian, Norwegian, Swedish, etc. I also knew he was capable in most
of the Semitic languages, such as Hebrew, Aramaic, Syriac, …
Ugaritic, Phoenician, Moabite, etc. I understand that he learned to
communicate in Arabic during a transatlantic boat trip to Israel. In
addition, I heard that he had learned to speak Korean from some of
the students at the Seminary and was skilled enough in that language
to correct the grammar in a Korean letter he had received - a thing
he did, no doubt, with characteristic self-effacement and humility.”
Imagine
being like one of those men. We can imagine it different ways. Paul's
concern is not to answer questions about how these things –
prophecy, knowledge, wisdom, faith – work. Even if we were sure
exactly what he meant we could not be sure that it works the same way
today. No, the point is that even if you were the best Christian you
could imagine being in some area – the best reader of the Word,
wisest counsellor, greatest theologian, best in Hebrew or Greek,
greatest prayer warrior, the one with more faith than anyone – then
that of itself would not make you a truly great Christian if the
essential and greatest ingredient, love, was missing. And so we say
2. Yet consider how
useless it would be without love
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 nothing.
Imagine you could just go out there and it was like some sort of
supermarket and you could load up your trolley – Hebrew, Aramaic,
Greek, half a dozen degrees in theology, counselling skills, great
faith, power to pray, whatever, pile it on. Then imagine walking to
the till and wondering how much this is all worth, as it were. Then
watch the girl at the till as she passes each item under the scanner.
Perhaps there are 10 items, 20, 30, even more. Then you look to see
how much has been rung up on the till. And what does it say? Well,
you should know what it says. There's just a big fat zero. Nought.
Nothing. Nil. Zilch. Why? Because as Paul makes clear here, without
love it is all worth nothing. It is useless. You can do no good. You
can achieve nothing.
So
here is something to ponder. There are people who say that what we
need today is miracles and healings and so on. But Paul says no. What
we need is love. Do you want to read the Bible well? Good. Do you
want to understand it? Excellent. Do you want to be wise in Christ, a
counsellor, a prayer warrior, a person of great faith? These are all
good desires. But what you have to realise is that gifts and graces
are not the same and without love it is all of no use. There is no
point being a great theologian, a great linguist, say, a wonderful
youth worker, a man or woman of prayer – if you don't love the
people you seek to serve. That must be central. $ Otherwise it is
like wearing the right clothes but not doing the work. The whole
purpose these things exist is to encourage people to love God and
their neighbour. So whenever you think about doing such things, pray
for love. Pray that you will not only be good at it but that you'll
be full of love.
3.
Even if you make the biggest sacrifices a Christian can, if you lack
love, it will be of no profit to you
Now you'd think that the point had been made and we could move on.
But Paul knows what slippery customers we are so he says one thing
more. And so I say to you
1. Imagine making the biggest sacrifices you can imagine a Christian
making
In
verse 3 Paul ratchets it up just one more notch. Okay If I
give all I possess to the poor and surrender my body to the flames,
surely
that will be enough. Surely Paul is not going to speak against
someone who gives up everything for the poor or who dies a martyr's
death? Well. Let's think about this. Here's a person who gives
everything they possess to feed the poor. Perhaps their stand for the
faith means that they are persecuted and they are even burned to
death as a martyr.
There are some striking examples of this sort of thing in church
history.
Do
you know the name of Fred Charrington? Born
in the East End in 1850, his father was a partner in the Charrington
Brewery, one of London’s biggest brewing companies, and Fred was
heir to a fortune of over a million. Educated at the best schools, he
later joined the family business. When he was 19 he was converted. A
year later, while walking through Whitechapel, he saw a poorly dressed
woman with her children begging her husband to leave the pub and give
her money for food. The furious husband came out and knocked her into
the gutter. Charrington went to help and was also knocked to the
ground. Looking up, he saw the sign above the pub and what name did
he see? Charrington (his own). “When I saw
that sign,” he later wrote, “I was stricken just as surely as
Paul on the Damascus Road. Here was the source of my family wealth,
and it was producing untold human misery before my own eyes. Then and
there I pledged to God that not another penny of that money should
come to me.” And that's how it was. He left the family business to
devote his life to helping the poor in the East End. He opened a
school, led a fight to clean up the music halls and became an ardent
worker for temperance. In 1870 he founded Tower Hamlets Mission and
did many similar things to bring the gospel to people and help those
being ruined by drink and drugs.
As for martyrs, you know how many died for Christ in Queen Mary's
time. In Oxford there is a memorial to Latimer, Cranmer and Ridley.
Latimer and Ridley died the same day (October
16, 1555). As he was tied to the stake, Ridley prayed, "Oh,
heavenly Father, I give unto thee most hearty thanks that thou hast
called me to be a professor of thee, even unto death. I beseech thee,
Lord God, have mercy on this realm of England, and deliver it from
all her enemies." His brother had brought gunpowder for the men
to put round their necks so death could come more quickly, but Ridley
still suffered greatly. With a loud voice he cried, "Into thy
hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit ..." but the wood was green
and his upper body would not burn. He repeatedly called out, "Lord
have mercy upon me! I cannot burn … Let the fire come unto me, I
cannot burn." One of the bystanders finally brought the flames
to the top of the pyre to hasten his death. Latimer died first. He
famously said to Ridley, "Be of good comfort, Mr Ridley, and
play the man! We shall this day light such a candle by God's grace,
in England, as I trust never shall be put out."
In
2004 a BBC documentary on persecution in North Korea featured Kwon
Hyok, a former prison official. He described a number of atrocities,
including an incident in which 50 healthy women prisoners were
selected and given poisoned cabbage leaves, which they had to eat
despite their cries of distress. All 50 were
dead after 20 minutes of vomiting blood and anal bleeding. Refusing
to eat the cabbage would have meant reprisals against their families.
Kwon had been head of
security at Camp 22. He described laboratories equipped respectively
for poison gas, suffocation gas and blood experiments, in which three
or four people, normally a family, were the experimental subjects.
After undergoing medical checks, the chambers were sealed and poison
was injected through a tube while scientists observed. Kwon described
watching a family (parents and two children) die from suffocating
gas, the parents trying to save the children using mouth-to-mouth
resuscitation for as long as they had the strength.
You hear of such things
and you think “I couldn't do it”. Yet we want to be willing. But
do you know that even to go to these lengths in our service to Christ
could all prove to be useless in the end if we somehow failed to act
out of love?
2. Yet consider how useless it would be without love
See
Paul's words again. Even if I go to the extreme of giving all
I possess to the poor or
surrendering my
body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing. Again
it is useless. It counts for nothing.
Do
you see that? I know it's hard to imagine someone doing such things
and not being motivated by love but it could be that they act
motivated by pride or out of some misguided determination. If love is
missing – love to God, love to our neighbour – then it really
does amount to nothing. Perhaps now you see why Jesus warns that many
will come saying they did this or that for him and he will say “I
never knew you”. Judas performed miracles but there was no love in
his heart.
We have spoken a lot about love
without defining it. Paul does that in verses 4-7. He says Love
is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is
not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily
angered, it keeps no record of wrongs, etc, etc.
We will say more next time.
Over the summer I heard someone say that the word love never appears
in the Book of Acts. I'm not sure what point those who cite this seek
to prove (I think it is to do with how we present the gospel) but if
you read the Book of Acts you will see that although the word may not
appear there the idea is everywhere present, eg the way the early
believers shared with one another and had everything in common. What
we need is not to talk more about love but to be more loving.
In Galatians 5:6 Paul says The only thing that counts is
faith expressing itself through love. Pray
to be a better Christian – more able, more willing, more devoted
but pray especially for love. Pray that God will fill you with love –
for him and for his people, even for our enemies as we are commanded.
Jonathan Edwards wrote that Christian
love reflects “the sum of all the virtue and duty that God requires
of us, and therefore must undoubtedly be the most essential thing.”
Do you believe that? Surely this is what Paul is teaching in these
verses. Let's live in the light of what he says. Not only is that
right and good but it is a wonderful thing to be enjoyed and the most
attractive thing in the gospel. Even if you are not a believer this
morning I am sure you are drawn to what Paul speaks of here. It is
wonderful. I wish it was seen more in us. Jesus says to his disciples
All men will know that
you are my disciples if you love one another. When
we fail to love, the world rightly smells a rat and wants nothing to
do with us. How different when we do.
