Love, The Church?

Introduction

Continuing series on relationships (Love, Actually?)

I want to start off with 1 Corinthians 13. Most people will know what this chapter is about - and if you’re wondering why it sounds so familiar - this is the love chapter. If you’ve ever been to a wedding, there a very high change that a whole chunk of this chapter will be read out. (Love is patient, love is kind, it does not envy or boast etc.)

And because of that you could be forgiven for thinking that this passage was written as a form of celebration - that it was written by Paul to celebrate and encourage the church to continue loving other people and to continue just being loving people in general - just like a general encouragement towards love.

But you’d actually be wrong on two significant counts. The FIRST being that this letter wasn’t actually written about general love at all. Paul was writing TO THE CHURCH - he’s writing TO believers ABOUT other believers. Specifically - He’s writing about the love between BROTHERS AND SISTERS in the faith. It’s actually about a SPECIFIC kind of love between believers - WITHIN the church. The SECOND being that this letter is not a celebration by any margin - it’s actually one of Paul’s most severe warnings out of all the warnings he gives the church in any of his letters.

Why’s Paul writing a severe warning to the church? I mean from the sounds of it it sounds like the church is actually doing WELL -

It was growing quickly, there was an outpouring of spiritual gifts on the congregation and the expression of major gifts like prophesy, tongues - it’s quite clear that the Holy Spirit was working within the church.

So what would make Paul give such a warning? What would prompt him to write this kind of warning to a church that looked like it was doing well?

This is what I want to look into tonight.

Let’s pray.

Segment 1: Without love = Nothing

1 Corinthians 13 ESV

1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. 8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Familiar right? We’ve all heard this passage, or at least parts of it read aloud at multiple points in our lives.

However, just like I said before, what we don’t often pay attention to is the tone with which it’s written - and that’s because we are unaware of the context.

This passage is about LOVING THE CHURCH. It’s written TO the church, ABOUT the church. It’s about the love that happens right here - between believers.

So how is it a warning to the church? Well, the context is that this chapter comes sandwiched in between chapters 12 and 14 - both chapters are Paul writing to the church and ENCOURAGING them about their use of spiritual gifts, and acknowledging the outpouring of the work of the gifts of the Spirit in their midst.

And so as Paul is writing about these gifts - he inserts chapter 13 as an incredibly important note. Basically a “before I go on - you need to know something incredibly important.”

And then he goes on to effectively nullify the importance of the gifts that he spends 2 chapters talking about. 1 Corinthians 13:1–3 “1 If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

He talks about EVERYTHING that the Christian should be - great gifting, good works, miracles, faith that moves mountains.

And he says that you can have ALL of these as a Christian and more - BUT if you neglect to love one another, if you don’t LOVE THE CHURCH, then you have nothing, and more than that - you ARE nothing.

You can SERVE the church, you can BUILD the church, you can be GIFTED for ministry, you can be ANOINTED for the kingdom - but if you neglect to LOVE the church; then YOU are nothing, YOU gain nothing.

Are you hearing how EXTREME this warning is when placed in the right light?

Just because you are operating in a gift, just because you are an anointed individual - does not automatically mean that you love the church.

No, in fact from what Paul is saying - it is entirely possible to be gifted for the work of God and not love the PEOPLE of God. Not just possible - it was HAPPENING. It STILL happens.

Pick up something really important in the phrasing that Paul uses - he doesn’t actually say that the GIFTS themselves become nothing; he says that the INDIVIDUAL that PRACTISES the gift becomes nothing.

To me - that’s very theologically uncomfortable. What that means is that a prophetic word from an unloving person can still be true - and can still serve and build the body. But the MINISTER is counted as nothing.

You could still speak in tongues, and exercise the manifold gifts of the Spirit but if you don’t LOVE the people that you’re serving and building up, then YOU are NOTHING.

In other words the warning is this - Don’t be deceived by the success of your ministry, or your level of giftedness, or the heaviness of the anointing on you; because if you don’t LOVE the church then you remain NOTHING.

The language Paul uses is that of accounting - picture a set of scales, you can stack the scales as much as you like with your giftedness, with your talents, with your involvement and your service and your attendance even - as high as you like it! But if you don’t LOVE the church, then it doesn’t just LEVEL out, it all becomes NOTHING.

Segment 2: Loving the church is a proof of the faith

Matthew 7:21–23 ESV

21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 On that day many will say to me, ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name, and cast out demons in your name, and do many mighty works in your name?’ 23 And then will I declare to them, ‘I never knew you; depart from me, you workers of lawlessness.’

This is the passage that comes into my mind when I think about what Paul is talking about - people who are gifted, who serve, who build but who neglect to love one another, to love the church.

So many people can say - but God I minister for you, but God I’m serving your church, but God I’m on your worship team, but God I’m on the SERVICE team, God I preached for you, God I was at church EVERY WEEK for you!

And yet the Lord says - I never knew you! You are not known to me, all your works have amounted to NOTHING because you failed to LOVE your brothers and sisters, you failed to LOVE the church!

Wait hang on a second Jon - that’s pretty harsh right? “It’s not like they didn’t love God! Doesn’t scripture say in romans that anyone that calls on the name of the Lord will be saved? Doesn’t it say that we just have to believe in our hearts and confess with our mouth? It doesn’t say anything about loving the church there!”

Well actually - you’re wrong there.

1 John 4:7–8 “7 Beloved, let us love ONE ANOTHER, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. 8 Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

1 John 4:20 “20 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.”

1 John 3:10 “10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.”

Our love for the church (which is the context of all of John’s passages above) is an EVIDENCE that a person has been born again. It is the MARK of a believer, it is FOUNDATIONAL for EVERY believer to have a love for the church.

THAT is why it’s such a big deal to Paul. Loving the church isn’t just a suggestion, it’s a foundational PROOF of our faith.

I think that we’re so used to hearing it as just a “nice phrase” - “Love your brothers and sisters, love the church, love each other, give each other a hug” to the point that you may think that we just use it as some catch phrase to make this place a bit prettier.

That’s not a catch phrase - that’s a purpose statement. That’s us telling you EXACTLY why we’re all here, and EXACTLY what we’re trying to do.

Listen: You can have everything, you can BE everything that’s good in the world - but if you don’t love the church, if you don’t love your brothers and sisters - then everything you have, and everything you are amounts to nothing.

ILLUSTRATION: 100 trillion dollar note

Is there anybody here from Zimbabwe? Yeah when I was in uni one of my Zim friends played a cruel joke on me for my birthday. He said that he didn’t have time to buy me a present so he was going to give me some money. As a proud asian man - that’s way better than getting me some useless like calculator or some crap. No asian is ever going to say no to money - so yeah pay up baby. He even put the money in a chinese red packet which I thought was a nice touch but didn’t really care for it.

Do you know how much was in it? It was one note. Not $10, not $100, not $1000. Freaking a ONE HUNDRED TRILLION dollar note from Zimbabwe. The Lord is good.

Now, I’m familiar with bad exchange rates. I’ve been to America where you basically land and your money is effectively halved. So in my head I’m like - ok this is not worth a hundred trillion aussie dollars - but that’s fine! It’s got 14 ZEROS IN IT so it’s got to be worth AT LEAST $100, heck I’d settle for like $50, like I barely knew the guy so $50 would be a solid gift.

It was worth 50c. I couldn’t even buy the straw to drink my bubble tea out of. Funny story though, I threw the note away coz I was pissed at my mate, but now the notes are collectors items and a legit one is worth $100AUD. Had to basically give over my asian card after that one.

What’s my point? Without love - you’re a 100 trillion dollar note Christian. Doesn’t matter how much you’re SERVING, how many services you’re ATTENDING, how many GIFTS you have or how ANOINTED you are - if you don’t have love, you amount to nothing, you gain nothing in the eyes of the Lord.

Segment 3: The Love List

Paul then moves into the next segment of the chapter which we would be most familiar with - the segment where he starts to describe what love is.

1 Corinthians 13:4–7 ESV

4 Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant 5 or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; 6 it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. 7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

For those of you who may not know, this is actually directed at a list of situations that Paul talks about in the other chapters of this book. It’s a list that addresses the sins of the church against one another.

HOWEVER - I’ve always had a genuine question about this passage, which is: why doesn’t Paul lay it on harder when it comes to defining love? His list sounds…a little bit weak, don’t you think?

I mean there was some seriously bad stuff going on in the church of Corinth at the time, if he wanted to really rebuke them he could have written: Love doesn’t sleep with your mother while your father is still alive, love doesn’t sue its own brothers in the church, love doesn’t treat the poorer brother with disdain - I mean all these things were happening.

If you’re going to write a passage DEFINING love - you’d think that you want to get the really big stuff out of the way right? The things that love DEFINITELY isn’t.

But instead we see Paul go a completely different direction here and list these small things that seem incredibly inconsequential. Love is patient? it’s kind? It doesn’t envy? Isn’t this just…obvious?

But this is where we mistake Paul’s meaning. What Paul is trying to do here is show us that if we only think of love as: I haven’t WRONGED anyone - then we have fallen far short of God’s definition of love.

If we think that love is simply not hating the church, or not stealing from anyone in the church - then Paul is showing us in this passage - that’s a pitiful, cheap definition of love.

He’s saying: Love is breached when you do something as SMALL as envy! Love is breached when you do something as small as BOAST! Love is breached when you even fail to be patient and kind!

In other words - forget murder and stealing, even BOASTING is a breach of the love between believers, even being self-seeking is a breach of love between believers, EVEN KEEPING a record of WRONG is an violation of loving the body of Christ.

In other words he’s saying: Love isn’t just the ABSENCE of wrongdoing - this is a cheap definition of love.

He’s not letting the church off easy by saying: “Just don’t murder and steal and hold unforgiveness, that’s pretty much love!”

No he’s calling the church to a completely different level of loving one another: Are you EVEN impatient or unkind to one another? If so - you are not loving one another.

I think churches have lost this practise - we are so ok with NOT wronging each other, and we pass that off as loving each other!

Church has become a place where we’re ok to walk past a brother or sister without a second look, without knowing or caring about them. We say - that’s the mission of the pastors and leaders.

No, friends - this warning is directed at you then. Loving your brother and sister in Christ is a burden that ALL Christians must bear.

1 John 4:21 “21 And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.”

And Paul is calling the church out on our failure to do this. We think that we can get away with just NOT wronging one another - that’s not love, that’s just cohabitation!

And that mentality explains the pitiful testimony the church has to the world today.

See here that today God calls all of us to more.

1 Corinthians 13:7 “7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.”

There are no exeptions - there are no exemptions! It doesn’t say Love bears SOME things, love endures MOST things, love believes in SOME people.

See this for what it is friends - this is a radical call to love the church on a completely new level.

Segment 4: Temporal vs Eternal

Paul finishes his letter with 1 Cor 13:8-13

1 Corinthians 13:8–13 ESV

8 Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. 9 For we know in part and we prophesy in part, 10 but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 11 When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I gave up childish ways. 12 For now we see in a mirror dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I have been fully known. 13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Paul finishes his passage with this - and it almost seems like a random addition, why is Paul suddenly talking about prophesy and knowing fully?

This comparison is about the temporal vs the eternal

He’s saying that every gift that you present with, every prophecy that you speak, everything that you know - all of it is going to pass away because EVERYTHING of this earth is temporary.

But Love - love lasts forever - love never ends.

Let me translate this for you into something so practical that you can understand - listen to me:

When you think of the greatest ways you can build this church, loving it should be your first thought.

There is no gift that is better, no ministry that is greater, no prophecy more powerful, no miracle more outstanding, no legacy more profound - than you simply loving your brothers and sisters in this room.

Just imagine that Paul calls love greater than both faith and hope. Faith and hope - both of these essential characteristics for any Christian to express, and yet love is greater than even these things.

Hear me out HFTC because I want to say something as one of the fathers of this house: we glorify churches that are growing big, with epic worship and amazing preaching, with fantastic buildings and jaw dropping production.

Maybe you feel like HFTC is going to be heading there - that we will become that super big mega church with a beautiful building and epic worship and amazing preaching.

And you know what? BRING IT ON! Why would I ever say no to growth? To an amazing building that we can fill? Why would I say no to an excellent worship and stage ministry? These are all GREAT things.

BUT you have to know something, and I mean this from the bottom of my heart, that I would give ALL of that up in a heartbeat for a loving church.

I would rather be in a run down building, struggling to keep up financially, with an amateur worship team, and no fancy lights or sound - if it meant that this place was a warm, loving, home for everyone that walked through our doors.

The only church that we want to build is one where loving one another isn’t just what is PREACHED from the stage, it’s not just a DESIGN on a screen, it’s not just a CULTURE PILLAR we recite- It’s the MOTIVE AND THE GOAL of all that we do. It’s the JOURNEY AND THE DESTINATION. It’s the FIRST THOUGHT and the LAST ACTION.

Above everything else - let that be the church we build.

ILLUSTRATION: Go rest, Pastor You know, we’re not a perfect church guys - but I know we’re on our way to something right.

As as pastor, one of the things that we do most is pastoral meetings - obviously. As you would know, whenever some of you guys are going through rougher seasons in your life; our job is as a shepherd - we make time to see you and encourage you and speak life into you, it’s one of the best parts of the job. It’s not easy, but honestly - it’s the calling, God gives us strength to do it.

One particular night, I had a pastoral booked in after dinner at church. And it was just one of those weeks that alot was going on, and life was just really busy. The church building was JUST completed, I was preaching that coming 10AM and I hadn’t finished my message yet, had been in meetings since 8AM in the morning, that sort of day.

And so I lay down on the couch in the office just to rest for a little bit because there was still 30 minutes before the person I was going to meet turned up. Unfortunately - I was way more tired than I thought, and I actually fell asleep - promise it’s the only time it’s happened.

But I woke up like an hour later, and realised what I had done, and so I got up quickly - but that’s when I realised that the lights in the room were off, and I was covered by a jumper that someone had draped over me as I slept. I was confused, so I got up and walked into the foyer - and there was nobody there, but I saw the roar room lights on and so I looked in; and the person I was meant to meet was in there, sitting in the corner crying - but she wasn’t alone, she was surrounded by a leaders and a few of you guys, who were praying for her and ministering to her.

And the leader saw me and came out and said to me - “sorry pastor Jon we would have woken you up but she said not to, so we thought that we would pray for her and just let you rest.” My heart was so full at that moment.

I told the leader - “don’t be sorry, go do your thing.” and as the leader was leaving they said to me “go rest pastor. We’ve got this.”

Go rest pastor. We’ve got this.

I’m proud to be a part of the church that doesn’t leave loving up to the pastors. A church that sees love as the duty of not just the staff, not just the leaders, but of every person that considers themselves a part of this church. Love is the most important duty that we carry.

May we never forget it.

Altar Call

Specific group of people - people who have church hurt. Feel hurt by the church, leadership, burnt, used, abused, neglected, overlooked.

Want to pray over them and allow the Lord to mend those places in your heart so that you can help us build this place into one where we don’t make those mistakes.