Leadership: Leaders Love

Why was this written?

A-B-A Structure: Spiritual Gifts of 12 and 14

To show love is greater than Everything else in ministry!

Tongues (highly valued by Corinth) prophetic powers, understanding, all faith, service, sacrifice

Tongues without love= noisy gone or clanging cymbal (bring one!!)

Prophetic power, Understanding all things, all faith (enough to move mountains!)= I AM NOTHING!

Service, sacrifice and asceticism or martyrdom!= I GAIN nothing

Example of Giving Up ‘Deliver Up my body to be Burned’

Victor Hugo: Les Miserable: Description of Convent

The Bernardines-Benedictines of this obedience fast all the year round, abstain from meat, fast in Lent and on many other days which are peculiar to them, rise from their first sleep, from one to three o'clock in the morning, to read their breviary and chant matins, sleep in all seasons between serge sheets and on straw, make no use of the bath, never light a fire, scourge themselves every Friday, observe the rule of silence, speak to each other only during the recreation hours, which are very brief, and wear drugget chemises for six months in the year, from September 14th, which is the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, until Easter. These six months are a modification: the rule says all the year, but this drugget chemise, intolerable in the heat of summer, produced fevers and nervous spasms. The use of it had to be restricted. Even with this palliation, when the nuns put on this chemise on the 14th of September, they suffer from fever for three or four days. Obedience, poverty, chastity, perseverance in their seclusion,-- these are their vows, which the rule greatly aggravates.

“ ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ ” (). Jesus says that he will tell them, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” (7:23).

Living as a community of love

“Without love the gifts are worthless”: NIVAC

“ ‘Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and in your name drive out demons and in your name perform many miracles?’ ” (). Jesus says that he will tell them, “I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!” (7:23).

“To have or not have love is not about emotions or feelings but about living and relating to other people in a way that either does or does not reflect their great worth in God’s eyes and therefore in ours.” Pillar Commentary

Best program? GONG!

Best music? GONG!

Best preacher? GONG!

If I know my Bible, do my devotions every day, pray for 2 hours each morning. GONG!

If I go to church each week, give 20% of my salary to tithing, do family devotions...

If I give up my career for the Kingdom, start a non-profit, deal with race-relations, lead family devotions every night, lead worship, talk about Jesus to others, BUT HAVE NOT LOVE? Your ministry means nothing. You ARE nothing.

The Bernardines-Benedictines of this obedience fast all the year round, abstain from meat, fast in Lent and on many other days which are peculiar to them, rise from their first sleep, from one to three o'clock in the morning, to read their breviary and chant matins, sleep in all seasons between serge sheets and on straw, make no use of the bath, never light a fire, scourge themselves every Friday, observe the rule of silence, speak to each other only during the recreation hours, which are very brief, and wear drugget chemises for six months in the year, from September 14th, which is the Exaltation of the Holy Cross, until Easter. These six months are a modification: the rule says all the year, but this drugget chemise, intolerable in the heat of summer, produced fevers and nervous spasms. The use of it had to be restricted. Even with this palliation, when the nuns put on this chemise on the 14th of September, they suffer from fever for three or four days. Obedience, poverty, chastity, perseverance in their seclusion,-- these are their vows, which the rule greatly aggravates.

4 Love is patient and kind;

Via Negativa

4 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,

Love leads in the opposite way as the way we want our talents to take us.

Envy, boast, arrogant, rude, my way first, not rejoice at wrongdoing...

Checklist of sins Corinth struggled with.

Problem with Gifts:

Gifts can make us look better, more holy, more religious.

Gifts can lead to envy

Gifts can lead one to boast

Gifts can lead to arrogance: Look at how my ability to speak publicly trumps your ability to volunteer at a homeless shelter!

Look at how my ability to know Biblical truths trumps your ability to serve in the nursery.

Gifts can lead to being rude: “Your gift isn’t as valued or valuable as mine.”

You can see, then, how gifts can lead to insisting on its own way, be irritable, resentful, or rejoice at wrongdoing.

Prayer for Charismatic leaders:

Charismatic leaders:

Falling like flies right now! We need to be praying for people like Pastor Mike from Hope, Pastor JD from Summit, Pastor Stephen from Colonial.

but

4 Love is patient and kind;

Patient, first positive description of love for a reason.

Why? Patient: slow suffering: Love evaporates the negative emotions people you don’t like have on you. Love erases the negative emotions our enemies have on us. SACRIFICIAL: A lot not about us, but a love for the other.

rejoices with the truth.

What does this statement mean? Like, of course love doesn’t rejoice in wrong doing, but how does it rejoice with the truth?

Celebrates the right. Love is married to truth

Why does love rejoice with the truth? What is real, what is authentic, what is genuine, that creates trust! When you are known for who you are, and yet you are still loved, that is something to celebrate!

Love rejoices over the truth:

Claim: Jesus is the King: He’s a king who invites me into his Kingdom as his ambassador

Relativism can’t celebrate with truth. Impacts ability to love- uncertainty creates suspicion.

7 Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.

Bears, believes, hopes, endures

Ministry passes away

As for prophecies, they will pass away;

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.

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.

Three Things:

vv.8-9: Love Outlasts Ministry

Ministry passes away: 5 years of existence, but that doesn’t mean we’ll be around in 5 more years. Doesn’t mean Colonial will or the Summit or Hope or any other church institution...

v.10: Love is Maturity

2. v.10: Love is Maturity

Love Lasts

L

Not immature

11-12: Love without Mirrors

Love is the Hallmark Standard of Christian Maturity

To be known fully yet still loved.

LOVE IS Eternal:

13 So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

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.

Replace ‘love’ with Jesus??

Leadership: Leaders Love

Leaders Love

Love is Best!

How does Love work?

Via Negativa

Via Positiva

8 Love is Eternal