869 1 Cor.13.1-7 The Salad Dressing
Notes
Transcript
- Don’t you love salad dressing – it brings the whole experience of a salad to another level
- All the various pieces of the salad in the bowl are blended together with the dressing
- A shout out goes to my wife who makes the best Thai Salad around :-)
---------------
- Last week, the title of the sermon was “Jesus’ Salad Bowl” & we saw in the Scripture from last week, how the Holy Spirit uniquely gifts individuals in the body of Christ with the ability to love their church community & others in unique ways
- You might like to compare these unique gifts & ways with the different flavoured Ice Creams you buy down at the Port
- We don’t all like the same Ice Cream & some Ice Cream flavours hit the spot while others don’t
- Same too with the various gifts of the Holy Spirit that are able to hit the spot & help us to grow in Christ
---------------
- We saw how these gifts all came from the one Spirit & that we all drew from that one Spirit
- The reason he mentions this is so that the church will value each & every member
- Now, realise here that he is not dealing with matters of moral behaviour
- He can still speak of the church’s unity & of the one Spirit & still sanction some of its members over sinful behaviour
-----------------------
- Chp. 1 Factions & the party spirit – I follow Paul, I follow Apollos etc & neither twine mix
- Chp. 3 You destroy the church, he warns, God will destroy you
- Chp. 5 A man is in a relationship with his step-mother & the church are boasting about their freedom in Christ to do such a thing
- Chp. 6 They are taking each other to court & going to prostitutes
- Chp. 7 Since they had become Christians & thought they were being defiled by their non-Christian spouses, they were divorcing them
- Chp. 8 They were dining & participating in idol feasts
- Chp. 11 The women were leaving their God-ordained role as wives and mothers because they felt that God’s kingdom had spiritually arrived & male & female were now irrelevant
- Again in Chp.11 The well-todo are eating first at their love feasts & the poorer members are left with nothing. Some are getting drunk
Chp. 12-14 is about selfishness & boasting in regards to the spiritual gifts
- In spite of all this, they are endowed with the one Spirit & have a rich endowment of spiritual gifts
------------------
- As I said last week, the fruit of the Spirit governs the gifts of the Spirit
- So you can have gifts of the Spirit, but those gifts are for the body &, therefore, must be used in submission to the fruits of the Spirit
12 So also you, since you are zealous of spiritual gifts, seek to abound for the edification of the church.
------------------
- Last week, I suggested that the last verse of chp. 12 be read this way
31 But you are earnestly desiring the higher (greater) gifts. And I will show you a still more excellent way.
- They are desiring the things which give prominence to self – the enhancement of, & a leg up for, the EGO
- To get passed this attitude, we look to chp. 13 which he describes as a more excellent way
- For those of you who struggle over the use of spiritual gifts, if you get this part right, then you’ve made the home run; you’ve kicked the goal; you’ve scored the touchdown; you’ve made a hole in one
1. The Fruitlessness of Service Without Love (v.1-3)
1. The Fruitlessness of Service Without Love (v.1-3)
- What we have here in the first 3 verses are a lot of exaggerations to make a particular point
- Speaking in tongues of men & of angels; to know all mysteries; all knowledge; to have all faith so as to remove mountains
- He’s exaggerating here & going to the extreme measure of the perfection of a gift
- Other extreme measures:- Give up my possessions to give to the poor; Become a martyr for the faith – my body to be burnt at the stake
- All these things, if not based on love, are worthless – as he says in v.3 “it profits me nothing”
----------------------
- Because love is a reflection of the heart of God – of Jesus - & all He did for us at Calvary, loveless sacrifices mean that such deeds were done for selfish purposes
- Motivated by hate, you have a terrorist fly a plane into a building – an extreme measure of commitment - the end result is that he goes straight to heaven & has 72 virgins awaiting him
- Such a sacrifice was only for selfish motives
------------------
- Now look at verse 1
- You could have this special ability – tongues means the ability to speak in other known languages
- Imagine if you have never known how to speak Indonesian, but then are given that ability by the Spirit
- That would be amazing – knowing a language, you have never known or learnt before!
-------------------
- I have this recollection in mind of a group of people all speaking in tongues
- They were doing this – about a group of 8-10 in a circle holding hands – get this – on a footpath at night in the middle of Surfers Paradise
- Outside coffee shops & restaurants
- I was embarrassed as I had to walk passed them & listening to all the mockery of the people round about
- Honestly, it was baby-talk – it was definitely not any known language
- I could tell that because they were just repeating random syllables
- dabba, bababa
- One of the guys had a T-shirt covered in what looked like blood with a cross on it
--------------------
– I’m not intending to be offensive, but just plain honest about what I witnessed – and honestly it was distressing
- It made Christians look like packets of fruit loops – they heard nothing of the Gospel but were just confronted by a disruptive people on a footpath making a spectacle of themselves
- Paul will have much more to say on tongues & their proper use in chp. 14
------------------
- The problem is that tongue-speaking becomes an indicator for many of a higher spirituality – or, at least, a sign of a greater connection with God
- Ros & I have some friends back in QLD that we knew when our kids were playing soccer
- They were involved in a church they later left because to become leaders they had to confirm their “spiritual level’ by being able to speak in tongues – she could, he couldn’t & wouldn’t because of the unbiblical nature of the request
- This gift is open to abuse & Paul says that when love is not exercised, so this gift could be useful to the church, that person becomes like a noisy gong or clanging symbol
- I.e. they become someone who merely wants to draw attention to himself – bang, bang, bang on a cymbal– look at me everybody!
--------------------
- The gift of prophecy is not so much about predicting the future, but a message of God that calls people back to the standards of God
- Prophecy brings people face to face with the word & will of God
- Knowledge is an exceptional ability whereby a person is able to hold the history of God’s redemptive purposes together – a broad scope of the knowledge of God
- Faith that can move mountains is not saving faith per se – not the faith that every person needs to have, to be a Christian
- This kind of faith is a faith that tackles any obstacle that gets in the way of the work of God – it is “stubborn” faith or “tenacious” faith
--------------------
- But all these great & wondrous gifts from God are empty if the user doesn’t exercise them with the goal & purpose of love in mind
- You see, here’s the problem: the first fruit of the Spirit is love
- The Spirit, in giving us gifts, has given them so that through love, they become effective & beneficial to the body
-------------------
- We come now to the last 4 verses which describe & define the sort of love which comes from & is of God
2. Defining Love
2. Defining Love
- No wonder this is read out more than any other passage at weddings
- People instinctively know that this describes the noblest forms of love
- We have here a mixture of what love is & what love isn’t
-------------------
- One important observation is that the words used here in Greek to describe love are not adjectives but verbs
Q. That throws a spanner in the works – we are wanting to describe love so wouldn’t you use adjectives as they are here in English? Adjectives are words that describe?
- Well it seems that adjectives – even though that’s what comes here in English – are inadequate to actually tell us what love is
------------------
- Let’s take the first example – Love is patient
- Patient in Greek is a verb – how would you translate it in a sentence
- Well it would sound like this: - love, he is acting patiently which makes for difficult reading which is why we read it as adjectives
I.e. Love is patient
- The point is – “Love is defined by what it does & doesn’t do”
- That is very challenging
“Unlike other loves, which can remain hidden in the heart, it is essential to charity to manifest itself, to demonstrate itself, to provide proofs, to put itself on display, so much so that in the NT it would be necessary to translate agapē as ‘demonstration of love.” -- Ceslas Spicq 1
- So we have here 15 verbs in 3 verses that tell us what love does & what love does not do
- These are all related to what these Christians in Corinth were about
- Rich in spiritual gifts – caring only for those that gave them prominence
- As conspicuous as all their flashy Spirit gifts were, they were equally conspicuous in their lack of love
----------------------
- We look at patience which means long suffering – it is the passive side of the active – which is showing kindness
- Patience means withholding complaining; holding back anger, revenge & retribution; patience is bearing up under the load put on you from others
- Kindness is the active side – kindness is giving a benefit to someone who has not earned it or is worthy of it
- Kindness is the positive & voluntarily action of one person who chooses to give benefit to another – for no reason, other than the voluntary expression of good-will
- These two virtues of patience and kindness we see in our great God
22 What if God, although willing to demonstrate His wrath and to make His power known, endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction?
4 But when the kindness of God our Savior and His love for mankind appeared, 5 He saved us, not on the basis of deeds which we have done in righteousness, but according to His mercy, by the washing of regeneration and renewing by the Holy Spirit,
4 Or do you think lightly of the riches of His kindness and tolerance and patience, not knowing that the kindness of God leads you to repentance?
- Christians have sought to emulate our God in our actions by showing good will to one another
- We have not always done this well, but when it is done well, it makes for a powerful witness
- Let me read to you a statement from the early church preacher Tertullian
“It is our care for the helpless, our practice of lovingkindness, that brands us in the eyes of many of our opponents. ‘Look!’ they say. ‘How they love one another! Look how they are prepared to die for one another’ -- Tertullian
--------------------
- Love is not jealous/envious, nor does it brag or boast
Q. Can Christians become envious or jealous of the ability of other Christians?
- That God gifts us differently it is true, but when one Christian has a more prominent gift than another, is jealousy appropriate?
- Actually, such jealousy is the expression of an envious EGO, an unsatisfied or contented EGO
3 for you are still fleshly. For since there is jealousy and strife among you, are you not fleshly, and are you not walking like mere men?
- On the other hand, Bragging or boasting is the counter expression of an EGO desperately trying to elevate itself
- How this Corinthian church ever continued would be amazing to say the least
------------------
- Arrogant means “to puff up” or “to blow up” – I like the colloquial expression that says it all of an arrogant person – “he’s full of himself”
- Another translation is the word, “conceited”
- These words mean that a person is so full of themselves and their self-importance that they fail to see the value of other people
- Here’s a classic use of this word...
18 Let no one keep defrauding you of your prize by delighting in self-abasement and the worship of the angels, taking his stand on visions he has seen, inflated without cause by his fleshly mind,
- Again, we come back to a concern more focused on self than on others
- This is certainly a problem that many in Corinth have got
1 It is actually reported that there is immorality among you, and immorality of such a kind as does not exist even among the Gentiles, that someone has his father’s wife. 2 You have become arrogant and have not mourned instead, so that the one who had done this deed would be removed from your midst.
- They had become puffed up over their supposed freedom in Christ
- They were living by a “freedom from restraint” mantra rather than a freedom to love and serve
------------------
- Love does not act unbecomingly or rude
- There was a tent meeting that was held in Echuca East a number of years ago & our kids wanted to go along & have a look
- I told them, that it might be a long meeting, but they wanted to go anyway
- I said ok but I’m not just going to go for 15 mins & then leave
- We were there for about the 15 mins & they all said, “Dad, can we go”
- I tried to say that they should stay a little longer but they kept wanting to leave
- We were in the back row so it was easy, I thought, for us to get up & sneak out without being noticed
- Once we were up out of our chair & moving out of the aisle, the preacher called out & said, “What’s wrong”? “Did I say something wrong”
- He kept pressing me & I just responded with, “Sorry we have to go”
- I didn’t want to hesitate because it could have been even more embarrassing
- But after I got out of the tent I felt really embarrassed
------------------
- He had put us on the spot & gave us a grilling because we had decided to leave & he took it as a personal insult to himself
- I couldn’t help recall how the NIV puts its – “Love is not rude”
- We were all looked at by the people in the tent – he chose to act unbecomingly by trying to punish us because we were leaving
- He drew the attention of everybody in the tent to us in order to express his displeasure in us leaving
- If people choose to leave, you let them leave – it is the height of rudeness to want to belittle someone in public because you didn’t like the fact that some people chose to leave
--------------------
- Further now in v.5 Love does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable (or easily annoyed) or resentful;
- It’s interesting isn’t it, that most of what love is not, is when self or the Ego gets in the way & takes priority
- Easily annoyed when something doesn’t go our way is when we get irritable
- When that irritability goes to the next level is when we move to the resentful stage
- Resentful is when, as the NASB puts it, we “take into account a wrong suffered”
-------------------
- But joy of joys to know that God is love – God is patient & kind & through Jesus’ work of reconciliation, God does not take into account a wrong suffered against Him – this speaks of forgiveness
- So in reflection, thus far, the kind of love described here is the love of God
----------------------
- I hope we can see that the intent of love has real application
- We have romanticised love to the point of it being defined as a personal feeling; we have domesticated it into being an emotion
- I hope that you will see here that love – real love – can be within our grasp
- By faith, we will love the otherwise unlovely; by faith, we will love those who have hurt us; by faith, we will push forward with the love & learn to love like Him
------------------
Q. Is there anything here that suggests it involves an emotion?
- Yes, perhaps, there is one aspect here that suggests an emotive response
6 does not rejoice in unrighteousness, but rejoices with the truth;
- That’s an emotional response – to rejoice with the truth
- To be full of joy when the truth is proclaimed & when the truth is made known & when the truth is held on to
- In this postmodern world, people don’t want to rejoice with the truth, they want you to rejoice with unrighteousness
- To see some churches celebrating homosexuality & transgenderism makes me sad beyond belief
------------------
- But what makes me even sadder is that Christians would criticise us for standing for the truth & try to suggest that it is unloving to do so
16 So have I become your enemy by telling you the truth?
- That attitude is such a perversion of all that God has purposed in the Gospel of Christ
- We do not rejoice -period – in unrighteousness; but we rejoice with the truth – Love can do nothing against the truth
8 For we can do nothing against the truth, but only for the truth.
-------------------
- Hanging in here, there are just these 4 to go
- Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things & endures all things
- The best way to sum this up is that love has no limits
- As Anthony Thiselton puts it...
“Love never tires of support, never loses faith, never exhausts hope, never gives up.” -- Thiselton
- Love is not gullible as a literal reading might suggest
- In saying “Love believes all things” he is not saying loves believes whatever lie is out there, but that love never stops believing – continues to trust in the Lord’s care & provision like Jesus in the wilderness by living on every word from the mouth of God
-------------------
- Likewise, love hopes all things, which means that with love there is never a hopeless case
- The Corinthians, by all intents & purposes, seem like a basket case, but love continual hopes for the better – that they will response & repent
- So I will close with this piece of allegory
Imagine the Master Carpenter’s tools holding a conference: Brother Hammer presides, but several suggest he leave the meeting because he is too noisy. Brother Hammer replies, “If I have to leave this shop, Brother Screw must go also. You have to turn him around again and again to get him to accomplish anything.”
Brother Screw then speaks up. “If you wish, I’ll leave. But Brother Plane must leave, too. All his work is on the surface. His efforts have no depth.”
To this, Brother Plane responds, “Brother Rule will also have to withdraw, for he is always measuring folks as though he were the only one who is right.”
Brother Rule then complains about Brother Sandpaper: “He ought to leave, too, because he’s so rough and always rubbing people the wrong way.” And so goes the discord.
In the midst of all this discussion, in walks the Carpenter of Nazareth. He has arrived to start his day’s work. Putting on his apron, he goes to the bench to make a pulpit from which to proclaim the gospel.
He uses Brothers’ Hammer, Screw, Plane, Rule, Sandpaper, and all the other tools. After the day’s work, when the pulpit is finished, Brother Saw arises and remarks, “Brethren, I observe that all of us are workers together with the Lord.”
- And this work is made rich as we practice the virtues of love
1. Ceslas Spicq (TLNT 1:12)