The Motive of Ministry

1 Corinthians 13

A young couple acquired a parakeet whose only vocabulary was, “Let’s neck!”  A preacher heard about it and suggested they cage their bird with his bird whose only words were, “Let’s pray.”  When the birds were put together the couple’s bird, as usual, said, “Let’s neck,” whereupon the preacher’s bird replied, “My prayers have been answered.”

Never fall in love with a tennis player.  To him, love means nothing.

Boy:  “Gladys, do you love me?”  Girl:  “Yeah.”  Boy:  “Would you be willing to live on my income?” Girl:  “Sure, if you’ll get another one for yourself.”

Keep your eyes wide open before marriage—and half-shut afterward.

“Why does my sweetheart always close her eyes when I kiss her?”  “Look in the mirror, any you’ll know.”

A man sitting at his window one evening casually  called to his wife:  “There goes that woman Ken Roberts is in love with.” His wife in the kitchen dropped the plate she was drying, ran into the living room, knocked over a vase, and looked out the window.  “Where, where?” she said.  “Over there, said the husband. “The woman in the blue dress standing on the corner.” “Why, you big idiot, she replied, “that’s his wife.”  “Yes, of course,” answered the husband with a satisfied grin.

►       Jesus said to him, ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind.’ This is the first and great commandment. (Matthew 22:37-38)

►       A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another; as I have loved you, that you also love one another. By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another.” (John 13:34-35)

Every great city is known by a landmark building or construction.  There is the Coliseum in Rome, Big Ben in London, the Arch in St. Louis, Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco, Peachtree Plaza in Atlanta, and the Big Chicken in Marietta.  In the same way, books of the Bible are known for their great chapters.  In the book of 1 Corinthians, there is a landmark, a chapter that is a favorite to many.  It is called the “Love Chapter,” because it speaks of agape love.

Here is a word for us about serving together with love.  That is the motive of everything we do here in this church.  In addition to seeking God with all our heart, is that we live and work in a congregation that experiences great waves of love:  love that is directed to God and love that is directed toward each other. 

A church must minister together in a spirit of love!  The church at Corinth was a gifted church.  In the first chapter, Paul reminds them that they are gifted.  Yet in that church, with all of its giftedness, there was a fundamental lack.  They exercised their gifts with the most important foundation:  Christian love.  They did not have the right motivation; therefore, they could not serve and work together in love. 

When we speak of ministry, we are speaking of our ministry gifts.  We are a church with many gifts.  As we move into this new year, we need to reaffirm that the motivation of all our ministry is a motivation of Christian love.  In order to do this, let’s look at the first four verses.

I.  The Evaluation of the Ministry Gifts

Every member of this church has at least one gift of ministry.  This church is not a church with a lot of gifted people gathered to watch a few gifted people put on a performance on Sunday.  According to the teaching of the Apostle in chapter 12, every believer has at least one ministry gift. 

A. Ranking the Gifts

In ranking the gifts, he says, “Eagerly desire the greater gifts.”  Some gifts are greater than other gifts.  We must seek those greater gifts.  The church at Corinth had come to pride itself in one gift.  The ecstasy gift:  The gift of tongues.  Paul says, “No, seek the greater gifts.”  Some gifts are better than others, and he explains in the 14 chapter there is a gift that is greater than speaking in tongues. 

B. Reaching for the Gifts

The word “desire” means to press hard.  “To aim at.”  “I want a gift that will benefit most of the people most of the time.”  We are to aim hard at it.  “Keep on desiring the greater gifts.” 

C. Seek them Persistently

“Keep on desiring the greater gifts.”  We must always seek the gifts of the spirit, the gifts that benefit the people in the church:  Service, giving, teaching, exhortation, administration, and mercy.  We must seek them, use them, and develop them.

D. Seek them Lovingly

This is the key of the whole thing.  “Now I will show you a more excellent way to seek and use gifts of ministry.”  The word means that I am going to show you a way that is thrown up and beyond every other way of seeking and using the ministry gifts that God gives. 

II.         The Motivation of Ministry Gifts

A. The Dominant Foundation of the Ministry Gifts

Agape love.  R.C.H.  Lenski said, “Agape love is always willfully seeking the highest good of my brother or my sister.”  It is not a matter of emotional impulse.  It roots in the will. 

When our gifts are rooted in love, we grow and the church grows, when they are not rooted in love, the opposite takes place.  We become a dead church.  As one commentator puts it, The bones lift up and support the flesh, and in the same way, love lifts up and supports the church.  Without it, any church can collapse.

For fifty years, J.D. Jones was pastor of the church in Bornment England.  In the midst of his ministry, he stood to make a confession that a great deal of his ministry had been promoted by personal ambition rather than by agape love. 

So many things can motivate us in ministry.  Some can do it out of jealousy, because they want to do it better than somebody else.  Sometimes they can be motivated out of competition, “I want my class to be larger, I want my church to be the biggest.”  Many things can motivate us in our ministry, but Paul say, “Make sure that your motivation is rooted in love.”

B. The Different Functions of the Ministry Gifts

1.  The Gifts of Outward Expression

Verse 1:  Speaking in many languages. 

The gift of talking.  They were good speakers.  The uses himself as the example.  The word tongue was “known languages.”  Paul know several languages.  In Acts, it is revealed that he personally could speak fluently, Hebrew, Greek, and Latin.  He could stand and preach in those languages.  He knew the language of his day.  And yet he said, “If I could speak in every known language and it is not motivated with love, all I am doing is making a noise.” 

Then he moves up a notch.  “If I could speak the languages of angels.”  Many think Paul is using hyperbole.  In other words, he is exaggerating to make his point.  Yet, the Apostle claims to have participated in that, 2 Corinthians 12:4, “How that he was caught up into paradise, and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.”  He heard the language of angels.

“If I knew all the languages both of men and of angels, if it were not motivated by love, I would be making noise.”  He touches on that.  It was worst than that.  In the Greek world, the sounding of the gong and the clanging of the cymbal was part of worship of the pagan gods in the streets of Corinth.  They did this to get the attention of their gods.  “If my speaking is not motivated by love it is on the level of the pagan worshipers on the streets of Corinth.”

Verse 2:  Prophecy.

Proclamation of God’s word.  “If I had the gift of prophecy and was able to understand and speak every mystery . . .”  The word “mystery” means “that which was once concealed but now in Christ has been revealed.”  “If I were a prophet that could reveal every mystery of the faith, every secret, explain everything that would happen, if it were not motivated by love, I would be a zero. 

“If I grasp all knowledge . . .”  Being able to understand everything about God and His creation, and even had great faith, enough to move mountains, I am nothing without love.  Not merely knowledge, but faith and power. 

ZERO!  I don’t care what I do . . .!

In his book Mere Christianity, C.S. Lewis wrote, “Do not waste your time bothering whether you ‘love’ your neighbor; act as if you did.  As soon as we do this, we find one of the great secrets.  When you are behaving as if you loved someone, you will presently come to love him.  If you injure someone you dislike, you will find yourself disliking him more.  If you do him a good turn, you will find yourself disliking him less.”

2.  The Gifts of Sacrifice in Giving

Verse 3: sacrificial gifts. 

“If I give all . . .”  He didn’t say tithe.  Liquidate all of it and gave it to the poor . . .  Not just give it up but give it out.  I gain nothing.  I gain zero.  The hungry would have their needs meet, but I gain nothing.  Nothing temporal or eternal because I did it out of love. 

Where else could he go?  He moves from sacrifice of substance to sacrifice of self.  This is the highest option open.  There is no where to go beyond this.  He speaks of Christian martyr. 

Some early Christians ran toward martyrdom.  Origin, the early church father had to have his clothes hid so that he would not go and profess Christ and be killed.   He surrendered his body.  They praised the gift of martyrdom.  “If I gave the ultimate sacrifice, myself, I gain nothing.” 

Here Paul has painted a picture:  The Greatest Preacher, the greatest philosopher, and humanitarian.  And yet if you put it all together and it is not motivated by Christian love, it is nothing but a zero. 

We need to check ourselves in every area of our ministry.  Whether it is preaching a sermon, teaching a Sunday School lesson, singing a song, making a visit, counseling a friend, shaking a hand, praying a prayer, or what every it is, we need to ask ourselves, “What is my motive in this deed?”  Is it less than it ought to be?  If it is than you need to go to God and pray, “I want you to baptize my motives, my ministry, in love.” 

It is interesting what they said about the church in the New Testament.  They didn’t say, “Look, there is 3000 people at Pentecost.  My, what an elegant preacher Peter was.”  They said, “Behold how they love one another.”  The impact was not in the great crowd that was gathered.  The world looking in said, “These people know love.” 

On one of the arches in a magnificent cathedral in Europe is sculptured a face of wondrous beauty. It can be seen only once a year when the sun is in a certain position, for then its rays streaming through a small window illuminate the exquisite carving.  According to legend, when the structure was being built, an old man came and begged permission to work on some portion of the great church.  He had been a well-known artist, but now his trembling hands and failing sight caused the architect to fear that he would mar the beautiful edifice. 

Out of respect for his age and reputation, however, he allowed the artisan to chisel a design under the shadows of the vaulted roof, thinking no one would ever see it there. After months of painstaking labor, the elderly gentleman could hardly work his way up to the platform high above the floor, yet he insisted on one more climb to make a few finishing touches.

When he failed to come down by nightfall, a workman went up and discovered his lifeless body. His tools lay beside him, and his sightless eyes were fixed on the marvelous face he had wrought in the marble. Although he thought it would never be seen, he had given his all to produce a masterpiece.  An authority on sculpture recently declared, “This is the most magnificent work of all, for love wrought it!”

If we are going to make an impact on this community, it want have to do with how many come, or how great the preaching is or how great the music is, or how great the Sunday School teachers are.  It will have to do with rather or not people coming into our midst see how we love one another.