The Central Thing (Worship Issues, Part 5)

“Dearly Beloved, we are gathered here today to celebrate the union of this man and this woman in holy matrimony...”

I’m sorry... That’s typically what is said before the reading of 1 Corinthians 13. So many weddings have these familiar words about love read aloud by the minister officiating the wedding. Out of curiosity: how many of your weddings featured 1 Corinthians 13?

This is commonly known as the love chapter.

I was tempted to sing the love medley from “Moulin Rouge” this morning, but Meghann refused to play Nicole Kidman to my Ewan McGregor. “Love is a many-splendored thing. Love lifts us up where we belong. All you need is love. ‘All you need is love, all you need is love, all you need is l-o-v-e.’ ‘Love is just a game.’”

I also thought about trying to pull off a parody of the SNL skit: “What is love? Baby, don’t hurt me, don’t hurt me, no more.”

There are so many songs, so many movies and books that deal with love (or at least the cultural conception of love) it’s not even funny.

In church-circles and church-speak, ‘love’ is one of the standard responses, one of the most common Sunday school answers: “Jesus, God, Love, and the Bible.” Shoot with any one of those, you’re bound to hit somewhere close to the target.

Paul would say: “Love is the central thing.”

Some find this chapter out of place here in the midst of the discussion on spiritual gifts, almost as if Paul dropped the pages of his letter on the way to the post office, the wind blew them around a bit, and, after he gathered them all up, he couldn’t get them back in order quite the way he had them, and just sent them to Corinth as they were. But that’s not the case.

Neither is this chapter a diversion or a rabbit trail. Paul’s not trying to slip in a random chapter on love—“Whoops-a-daisy! I guess I should probably say something about love before I finish.”

He’s making it clear that love is central to the whole discussion—to the whole of what he’s discussing. It’s what’s lacking in Corinth, love; especially where their worship is concerned. Where their exercise of spiritual gifts is concerned, love has to be the central thing, the controlling dynamic, the umbrella under which everything sits.

Paul’s writing to them about spiritual gifts in chapters 12 and 14, and sandwiched in between the two is this magnificent chapter on love. It’s love, understood rightly, Biblically; it’s love and only love that will guide the Corinthians (and us) to a proper use and understanding of our spiritual gifts, our fellowship, our gathering.

1 Corinthians 13 is so central to Paul’s argument, so central to the Christian faith, that we are going to spend two weeks looking at this wonderful chapter.

If you have your Bible (and I hope you do), please turn with me to 1 Corinthians 13. If you are able and willing, please stand with me for the reading of God’s Holy Word, out of reverence for Christ:

1 Corinthians 13:1–7 NIV

1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 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 do not have love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing. 4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

May the Lord add His blessing to the reading of His Holy Word!

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In the context of “worship issues”, Paul has been instructing the Corinthians about spiritual gifts, about belonging to a body—a diverse body made up of many different parts. Every part has a different function and a different purpose.

The Corinthians need to understand that they all belong together in the body of Christ. Paul set that out at length in 1 Corinthians 12.

But their understanding that they are part of a diverse and varied body won’t be any good if they simply try to put these truths into practice while grumbling about it or shrugging their shoulders over it.

The Corinthians need to take moment, pause, and deepen their understanding of the highest virtue, the greatest quality, the most Jesus-like characteristic you can imagine: love.

Love is the central thing. It has to be our motivation, that which colors and informs everything else we do.

Paul insists that love is essential for Christian living, especially for communal Christian living and its shared worship (i.e. as a church).

Many people assume the chapter is about love between a man and woman, that it was written to provide guidance and insight for married couples. It’s perfectly appropriate for husband and wife to learn how to love each other through the reading and study of this passage.

But its original purpose—its primary purpose—deals with the Church at large. This is speaking about how the Church must love, how its members must relate to one another.

This chapter is primarily about living in Christian community in a way that glorifies God, and this is by learning to treat other members of Christ’s body the way God has treated us—with self-sacrificing, others-oriented love.

This is what has come to be referred to as agape love, which is a bit redundant. Agape love means ‘love love’. Like “ATM machine” or “VIN number”, it doesn’t need to be said.

Agape is one of the Greek words for love (one of the four). The word is used 10 times between 13:1 and 14:1.

The word (agape) wasn’t invented by Jesus or by His followers (as some assume). However it did come to be the preferred word among Christians for the love shown and expected by Christ. Agape has the basic meaning of “warm regard for and interest in another.”

The New Testament dedicates a ton of space to explaining what love means for and requires of believers, unpacking the two basic texts of the Greatest Commandments:

Deuteronomy 6:5 NIV

5 Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.

Leviticus 19:18 NIV

18 “ ‘Do not seek revenge or bear a grudge against anyone among your people, but love your neighbor as yourself. I am the Lord.

So much of the NT expounds on these two great commands—Love God first, and love your neighbor as yourself:

Romans 13:8–10 NIV

8 Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for whoever loves others has fulfilled the law. 9 The commandments, “You shall not commit adultery,” “You shall not murder,” “You shall not steal,” “You shall not covet,” and whatever other command there may be, are summed up in this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.” 10 Love does no harm to a neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.

Galatians 5:14 NIV

14 For the entire law is fulfilled in keeping this one command: “Love your neighbor as yourself.”

Paul’s entire ethic is love. It matters deeply that we love, and love well. Jesus, who loved us and who enables us to love others, is not merely our example, but our strength and ability to love.

So Paul begins by stacking up all the impressive things the Corinthians might say, know, and do and asserts firmly that none of them are of any advantage unless there is love as well. Without love, without the central thing, we have nothing. As Christians, as the Church, if we are not marked by love, we might not be the Church; in fact, we might not be Christians at all.

1 Corinthians 13:1 NIV

1 If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal.

Love must be central to what we say

The way Paul writes here in the 1st-person probably means he’s preaching to himself, too.

The phrase the tongues of men or of angels probably refers to the gift of tongues, but it’s also general enough to cover speech of any kind.

The Corinthians were obsessed with impressive speech and they were intrigued by the idea that they might be able to speak supernatural languages.

An individual can speak any language he wants, can be as eloquent as she’d like to be. But if it’s not undergirded and infused with love, it’s just white noise.

A believer can sing all the love songs he’d like, but if he doesn’t mean it, if it is just a means to some other end, then Paul doesn’t want to hear it. It’s just noise.

It might be impressive or eloquent, but it’s empty of necessary meaning. Love fills what is said with necessary meaning.

We are a communicative people, most of us. Every year or so I lose my voice and it’s almost torture (torture for me, blessing for those around me). We communicate with one another online, via text message; phone calls and FaceTime. We gather together in one another’s homes and go out to eat so we can talk to one another at some length. Between casual conversation and the requisite conversation for work, we move our mouths a lot.

A good thing to consider is how much of what we say is seasoned with love?

More to the point of the passage in context, how much of what I say to my brothers and sisters in Christ is marked by this agape love? How much of my communication with and about my fellow Christians reflects the love Jesus has shown?

How much of my preaching, my teaching, my leading comes from a place of love—self-sacrificing, others-oriented love?

1 Corinthians 13:2 NIV

2 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 do not have love, I am nothing.

Love must be central to what we know

The Corinthians are a group of real dandies. They are obsessed with eloquence and excellence; they placed a high premium on intelligence, insight, secret knowledge. They worked real hard to access some higher plane of spiritual knowledge.

We know what this looks like. If we run into an incredibly intelligent, knowledgeable person who lacks kindness and humility, we probably won’t be very impressed with him. No one likes that person—the one who is smart and nothing else.

Knowledge without love is nothing. Intelligence without love might as well be ignorance. Even if we’re in the right, others would rather likely not want to hear what we have to say.

Having a handle on prophecy and understanding mysteries and possessing extra-special knowledge doesn’t count for anything without love.

You’ve heard it said, “People don’t care how much you know until they know how much you care.” This is true. If you’re knowledgeable but devoid of love, you are nothing.

1 Corinthians 13:3 NIV

3 If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.

Love must be central to what we do

Imagine this scenario: someone comes to the church because they need some help paying their utility bill and they need some money for groceries (this happens almost weekly, by the way).

They come to us because they are in need of financial assistance and because we have a fund set up to help them.

Now imagine we say, “Sure, we can help you with your needs, but you have to understand a couple of things: we don’t love you and we don’t care about you. We are really only interested in giving you some money because it will make us look good. Also, Jesus tells us to give, so we do this because we have to; again, not because we love you or care about you. Got it?”

They might, out of desperate need, take the money, but they might not come back. They might tell us to choke on it, and they should.

That is an entirely hypothetical situation, but there are numerous ways in which we can act without love. We can do a lot of different stuff as a church. We can go and serve and give and help and work and teach, but if the attitude and motivation behind it isn’t one love, Paul says it gains us nothing.

Don’t bother doing if your doing isn’t done in love.

If you serve because you have to, if you give because you have to, if you use your gift in the church without love, it’s not doing you or anyone else any ultimate good.

What we say, what we know, what we do—without love—is noise, foolishness, worthless.

Valentine’s Day rolls around and because you have to, you go to get your wife a dozen roses. You go to the flower store, tell the person working, “I’ve got to get some roses for my wife. That time of year.”

They select some roses, picking the color themselves because you told them it didn’t matter to you, you didn’t care at all. They give you one of those little cards and card holders to put with the flowers.

You drive home and set the flowers down on the kitchen table. Your wife looks at them, gushes, and then reads the card you wrote yourself: “To my wife: here are some flowers…because I had to.”

What we say, what we know, what we do—without love—is noise, foolishness, worthless.

How we relate to one another in the church, as we use our gifts, as we fellowship and serve with one another—how we do this matters. It matters deeply.

Who cares if you can speak beautifully or super-spiritually? Who cares if you know the Bible cover-to-cover? Who cares if you give a tenth of all you have? None of it matters or is of any worthy without love. It amounts to a dozen roses given out of duty or obligation.

>What, though, is meant by love? The middle verses of chapter 13 describe it. Line-by-line, we get a clear description, a beautiful picture:

1 Corinthians 13:4–7 NIV

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

It’s no coincidence that these four verses perfectly describe the character of Jesus Himself, and of nobody else. This becomes clear when we substitute ‘Jesus’ for ‘love’ in this passage, and then by contrast insert our own name instead.

Talk about an eye-opening exercise. I think much more of myself than anyone else does and I can’t even begin to read these verses with my name in there. I might be able to get by a few of them thinking, “Yeah, well, maybe that works some of the time…maybe.”

But Barrett isn’t patient (I’ve never been accused of that). Barrett is, unfortunately, quiet proud and incredibly self-seeking. Barrett might not be altogether envious, but boy is he easily angered.

I fail here very often. I can’t substitute my name for love in these verses. It just doesn’t work. But the name of Jesus subs-in perfectly.

He is love. Jesus is all these things and many more besides. In Him, there is nothing contrary to perfect love. It’s Jesus who fulfills all of this.

This is the Good News:

The gospel is never “buck yourself up and do better.”

The gospel is: “You can’t possibly do better or buck yourself up; you need Jesus, the One who has fulfilled all of this perfectly. And then, when He is your righteousness, when He is perfection, by Him and in His strength, with His help, you’ll be able to do this better, you’ll be conformed to Him.”

This life—a life marked by love—is within reach of each one of us because it is the life of Jesus, the life inspired by the Spirit, the life which is our birthright within the body of Christ.

Perhaps the best thing to do with a passage like this is to take it slowly, a line at a time, and to reflect on these two questions:

In what ways do we see this quality in Jesus Himself?

In what ways do we see this (or more likely do we not see this) in ourselves?

Can we read these verses together, reflecting on them, asking Jesus to help us, to give us strength, to lead us in a life marked by love—that we’d be loving in what we say, know, and do?

1 Corinthians 13:4–7 NIV

4 Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. 5 It does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs. 6 Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth. 7 It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.

“Father, help us to love in this way. Help us to love like Jesus loved us. Give us a love that is not our own. Invade our lives, by your Spirit, until we are patient and kind and everything else on this list. When we falter, when we fail, remind us that though we are not perfect, Jesus is. May we grow closer and closer to you. May we love more and more. We pray this in Jesus’ name and for His sake. Amen.”