Love Connection

ATTENTION

Chase Wright is pitching in a Double-A Baseball game in that picture you are looking at. Yet, it wouldn’t be long until he got his big break: He was called up to a major league baseball team, and not just any major league team. He was called up to the New York Yankees.

How did he do? Well, he tied a Major League Baseball record in his first week on the mound. On April 22, 2007, Wright gave up 4 consecutive home runs to the Boston Red Sox, allowing them to sweep their division rival Yankees in their first meeting of the season. He worked hard, it seems, but he didn’t accomplish much, except to serve up basketball-sized pitches to obliging Red Sox.

You can’t help but feel a little sorry for Chase. After all, we’ve all had the experience at one time or another. We get a big breack of some kind and want, in the worst way, to capitalize on it, yet no matter how hard we might try, we find ourselves walking the familiar road of failure. This has been true in the church as well. People have taken note of the fact that the organization identifying itself with the Kingdom of God seems more ineffective and irrelevant than it ever has. As far back as the early 90's Gallup was reporting that fully 70% of Americans believe that most churches and synagogues are not effective in helping people find meaning in life. 7 out of 10!

Do you ever stop to ask why? Do you ever question why the one body on this earth which should be the most effective is often the least? Do you ever why the group of people who should be the linchpin of progress is often the laughingstock of people? Why is this true?

NEED

And, the truth is, you and I as believers often reflect the same futility. We get up Sunday in and Sunday out and teach our lessons, and no one seems to be moved. We reach out into the community and people seemed to be helped phyiscally, but never moved spiritually. We get up on Sunday and sing our solos, but the music doesn’t penetrate the hundreds of hearts that find themselves present. We finally get up the courage to “Share Jesus without fear” with our next door neighbor and they yawn through our presentation, looking for their first opportunity to escape.

Most of the time we can find an excuse for our impotence. We blame it on the hardness of men’s hearts or the weakness of their wills; we may blame ourselves for prayerlessness or spiritual weakness; we may blame the devil and vow to redouble our efforts at prayer and spiritual warfare.

Yet, while all these things may have impact upon our ineffectiveness, I really don’t think it’s the primary reason our work is so ineffective. As a matter of fact, I think I may know the greatest part of the answer. I believe there is a disconnection when it comes to our work. I believe what so many Christians are missing today is a “Love Connection.” Simply put, your ministry and your calling must be exercised in the context of love for it to really be effective. Paul said it like this:

But earnestly desire the best gifts. And yet I show you a more excellent way. Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I have become sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. 2 And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.

These verses describe disconnected ministry. They herald the futility of ministry without love and they also by their negative example, show us how our ministry can be effective. You see, effective ministry is connected ministry. There is a “love connection” which must be present if you are to have power. Why is that? Well in the first place, Love makes ministry effective because it:

DIVISION 1: BRINGS MEANING TO OUR WORDS

EXPLANATION:

The Corithians were great at words! On the one hand they valued what they considered to be deeper spiritual mysteries, so they loved to multiply their words in explaining some “deep” truth of the faith. Thus they spoke prolifically in the “tongues of men.” O but the tongues of men were not good enough for them. There is good evidence that they actually believed that they could speak in the tongues of angels too. It is this church which “spoke in tongues.” That is, they believed that they could express heavenly truths in a language known only to the angels in heaven. They took pride in the display of the spiritual ecstasies. Whenever the worship service started the language began to flow, and it became a point of “one upsmanship”. They each tried to outdo the other, and it quickly degenerated into a cacophonous free-for-all. Onlookers who didn’t have the “gift” were left out, put down, and confused.

Now Paul tells them, here, that this kind of exercise was not loving and that, in fact, to speak all kinds of truth, whether in the tongues of men or of “angels” and not have love, was futile. In fact he says that to speak this way makes you like “sounding brass or a clanging symbol.” One person writes of this:

Paul is not simply saying that if love is absent, tongues are hollow and mere noise. He is suggesting that in cases where a tongues speaker might be without love in his or her lifestyle, the persons themselves would have become merely a resonating jar or a reverberating cymbal. The tense of the verb would literally say it like this “If I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, look at what I have become! I am nothing but empty noise reverberations going on and on andon. I am nothing but mere wind and rattle.

When I tell someone the truth to show them how much I know or to put them down for what they’ve done wrong or for how their lives do not “measure up” I sound to them like the teacher on Peanuts. You know if you’ve watched the TV version of the cartoon. The teacher is talking but it all sounds like “Wah, wah, wah, wah, wah wah.” That’s us when we speak truth without love.

O, but the opposite is also true. My words begin to have impact when they are connected to love. When I say what I say for the welfare of another, my words have meaning. They really begin to connect and what used to be an empty lesson has meaning; what used to be a yawner witness begins to land; what used to be a “here-we-go-again” message suddenly penetrates. Love gives meaning to my words!

ILLUSTRATION

As many of you know, I grew up in a great home with parents who loved me and God too much to let me get away with foolishness. Many of you had that kind of home too, and you, like me, have often thanked God for it. My father was a disciplinarian. He knew how to apply the strap of wisdom to the seat of knowledge if you know what I mean. But it wasn’t his application of coporal punishment that reached me at the crucial moment of my life.

It was my sophmore year in high school. I had always kind of grown up enamored with cigarrettes. They had been glamorized back then and didn’t have the stigma attached to them that they do today. The truth is, I didn’t like smoking as much as I just liked rebelling. I started going to the smoking area at our high school, thinking that I could get away with it and that no one would ever find out what I was doing. Now you’ve got to be pretty stupid to be in the only public High School in town and think that your dad, who pastors one of the churches in town, isn’t going to find out about it if you decide to take up such an obvious habit. So he approached me. He asked me if I had been smoking. I said “yes.” He asked me if I was planning to keep on doing that. I said “yes.”

At that point, he could have tried what I expected to try. I expected him to begin preaching his sermon about the body being the temple of the Holy Spirit and bombarding me with the truth that I had heard over and over again at church. He didn’t. In fact, he didn’t say anything that day. He let me stew in my own sin for a while. That afternoon he picked me up from school and took me to his office. He told me he loved me too much to let me get away with doing this and in the middle of the conversation, he began to cry. I didn’t remember seeing him cry before.

You know he could have cited the statistics about smoking and lung cancer, and I would have laughed them off. I was 16; I was going to live forever. He could have talked to me about how this was hurting my testimony and I would have hardened my heart. He could have said so many things and I might have been unmoved. What reached me were not his words; What reached me was his tears.

APPLICATION

You see, Love gives meaning to your words. The reason the world remains so unmoved by the message of the gospel is because they hear lips communicate love, while our lives communicate selfishness. The world has heard enough of our condemnation and our promises. It is time that the world saw the church living out the message of love. That’s just why Jesus said that “they will know we are Christians by our love!”

So Christian, are you a walker or a talker? Do you act in love towards the one you witness to? What about your kids? Do you actively sacrifice yourself for them. I have observed all kinds of families over the course of my life and the ones that invariably turn out the worst kids are the ones where the truth and discipline is paramount, but love went lacking! Love brings meaning to your words!

By the way, did you know that it even worked that way with Christ. It was His death on the cross that gave meaning to His words. If he had not been willing to die for us, all of those things he said when he roamed this earth would have been nothing more than the ramblings of another promising leader who failed to make good on His promises. It It is the love of Christ that sets Him apart from other religious leaders. Confucious may have professed love, but he didn’t die for you. Bhudda may have discussed love, but he could not prove it to you. Mohammed may have said that he loved, but he asks you to die for him. It is Jesus who said “I love you this much” and He stretched out His arms on the cross and died. It is love that brings meaning to your words.

You want to have effective ministry? You’ve got to have the love connection. It brings meaning to your words and then it brings

DIVISION 2: SIGNIFICANCE TO YOUR LIFE

EXPLANATION

Many psychologists will tell you that the primary focus of mankind is the search for his own significance. No matter who you are, they will say, you want to matter. I would disagree. Of course, I am not any world-renowned psychologist so you may want to take what I say with a grain of salt, but I don’t think that people are in a search for significance. No, they are on a search for more significance. I don’t just want to matter, I want to matter more than you. I want to be more important than you are, and even if I’m significant, just being significant isn’t enough I want to be more significant than you.

That was what was going on at Corinth. The gifts had become a spiritual version of the olympics. Everything was a competition. Paul taps into that in verse 2 of chapter 13 when he writes,

And though I have the gift of prophecy, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and though I have all faith, so that I could remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

Notice that everything is in the superlative. He says if I understand “all mysteries, all knowledge” and have “all faith so that I could remove mountains.”

Paul again speaks of the things the Corinthians thought would bring them value. They were vying with one another for the recognition of being the one who had the greatest prophetic insight. They wanted to be known as the Christian mystery guru, able to talk in ever-widening philosophical circles that left their admirers dazzled and the “regular” believer puzzled. They wanted the recognition of being the man or woman who had so much faith that they were able to accomplish what, to others, had been impossible. And, don’t miss this, All of it was an effort to matter and be seen as more important than others.

And what does Paul say, He says, “Hey, Corinthians, even if you won the spiritual olympics and you stand at the podium to receive the gold medal,” and yet you do not have love, what does it say? I am nothing. In other words, you aren’t significant, you’re a nobody. You’re nothing but a big zero. You’e a spiritual loser.

ILLUSTRATION

What you see before you is one of the many paintings of the Nativity, the birth of Christ. Theodotus of Ancyra was martyred in the 4th century but before he died for his faith he wrote this about one for whom he gave his life:

The Lord of all comes as a slave amidst poverty. The hunter has no wish to startle his prey. Choosing for his birthplace an unknown village in a remote province, he is born of a poor maiden and accepts all that poverty implies . . .

If he had been born to high rank and amidst luxury, unbelievers would have said the world had been transformed by wealth. If he had chosen as his birthplace the great city of Rome, they would have thought the transformation had been brought about by civil power. Suppose he had been the son of an emperor. They would have said: "How useful it is to be powerful!" Imagine him the son of a senator. It would have been: "Look what can be accomplished by legislation!"

But in fact, what did he do? He chose surroundings that were poor and simple, so ordinary as to be almost unnoticed, so that people would know it was the Godhead alone that had changed the world. This was his reason for choosing his mother from among the poor of a very poor country, and for becoming poor himself.

You see, he achieved significance not through position, power, or work, though He could have done it through all three. He achieved significance through love.

ARGUMENTATION

And I can hear what you might be saying. “That all sounds really nice, Rusty, but life just doesn’t work that way. If you are poor in spirit you get rolled! Life runs over the weak.”

I would say that you are correct . . . correct that is with one exception: Where the power of God is released, the weak win. In fact it is the weak that God is looking for so that He can make His strength perfect in their weakness. That’s the way it worked for the early church. From a band of 12, the church exploded. They had no politician pleading their cause for government was against them. They had no advocate taking their case for the legal system rejected them. They had no populist to stir up the masses. All they had was the blazing truth of Jesus and the amazing power of his love. And yet, that power shook the Roman empire. Tertullian would later write that the Romans cry out . . .

that the state is besieged; that Christians are in the fields, the fortresses, the islands; they lament as a dire calamity that every sex, age, condition and even rank, is going over to this profession.

Why? Because of the power of love. Love gives significance to your life.

APPLICATION

Listen, Christian, the way up is down! Singnificance doesn’t come through searching for it, or even working towards it. It comes through willingly letting it go and becoming a servant out of love. Jesus made Himself of no reputation and took the form of a servant. He acted in love and showed us the way to real significance.

Now I know we would all agree with that. If I were to ask you if you believed it, you’d say “yes.” But do we really practice it. /When was the last time you gave sacrificially to help the needs of another church member? When was the last time you tangibly helped the neighbors on your street that are out of work? When was the last time you did some action so much from your heart that no one ever knew you did it, and what’s more, you really didn’t want them to know it. It is the love connection that is so important in the exercise of your calling. It brings meaning to your words and significance to your life, but most of all, it brings

DIVISION 3: IMPACT TO YOUR WORK.

EXPLANATION

v. 3 says: “And though I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned, but have not love, it profits me nothing.” Paul seems to turn a corner here. In the first two verses, he speaks of the gifts that the Corinthians exercise to try to feed their own selfishness. In verse 3 he, in essence, says, “Even if you forsook the manipulation of the gifts to promote yourselves and truly gave your money to help the poor and even went so far as to sacrifice your own life in the most painful death that can be imagined, but did not have love (that is, you were not acting out of self sacrificing action in the behalf of another), you really aren’t getting anywhere. It brings no benefit.

Now the reason the they bring no benefit is not because they are inferior in themselves. After all if you give all your money to feed the poor and if you go even so far as to offer up your body to the flames, giving your life for someone else or for the Lord, that would be pretty noble. And yet, the Bible says, if you still didn’t love, you would gain nothing from those acts of mercy. Now I know the primary thrust of this is that those engaging in such actions would gain nothing, but I think you can also say that the acts themselves may, in fact, be ineffective. The point is that anythng you do for God that is done for yourself, no matter how noble or sacrificial, is ineffective. It is only when we genuinely work out of love that our work has impact.

ILLUSTRATION:

One pastor wrote:

Two years ago I nearly ditched the pastorate. I started focusing on the negatives of my job: the Saturday-night sermon-anxiety attacks, a pitiful raise, the disintegrating basement tiles in the parsonage. After eight years of frantically meeting needs, pleasing people, and tracking down plant stands for weddings, I could identify only trace elements of spiritual growth in my congregation. A dangerous ice slowly spread throughout my heart?the ice of cynicism, the ice of pastoral sloth, an attitude that didn't care if people changed because, of course, they didn't want to anyway.

God didn't answer my prayer for escape. Instead, God resurrected the call to ministry during our family vacation to Libby, Montana.

While I was reading and praying at an elementary school park, three children with bag lunches, dirty clothes, and dirt-streaked faces plopped themselves on the grass beside me. Before I could object or move, the oldest child launched into a complicated story of family dysfunction: "Hi, my name is Deanna, and I'm 12; my sister is Kristy, and she's 10; and Mikey, my brother?doesn't he look fat in his Lion King T-shirt??is 6. Actually, though, we all have different dads. My dad is dead; Kristy's dad disappeared; and Mikey's dad beats him up, so our mom is divorcing the creep. My mom and her fiancé, Larry, are at the casino because they need time alone, so she bought us all a barbecue burrito at the Town Pump and told us to stay in the park for two hours. Can we sit by you?"

In order to be polite, I said yes, then asked if they lived in town.

"No," Deanna, the family spokesperson, answered again. "We used to live in town, but my mom lost her job. I don't like living in a tent. By the way, what's your job?"

"Well, I'm a pastor."

After a long silence, she asked, "Mister Pastor, can you tell me something? I've heard stories about Jesus walking around healing people, loving people. Why doesn't he do that anymore?"

I launched into a lecture on the Incarnation. Three children simply stared at me with big, love-hungry eyes. I looked at Deanna and Kristy, with their limp burritos, and fat, little, abused Mikey, with barbecue sauce smeared on his Lion King T-shirt.

I stopped lecturing. With tears welling in my eyes, I said, "Deanna, Kristy, Mikey, let me start over. Do you have any idea how much Jesus loves you right now?"

How did God rebuild my call to ministry? He broke my heart again?with his love for these three children.

APPLICATION

When will we learn that what we need isn’t more, we need better? We’ve start this program to “reach the world,” and it doesn’t, so what do we do? We start another program (and we often leave the others in place). We end up so busy and yet the baptistry stays largely empty. What’s the answer? Do less but do it with impact! Where does the impact come from? Working out of love: Sacrificially giving yourself for another not to get anything in return. That brings impact.

And I am aware as soon as I say that of what may happen in your heart, cause it happens in mine. I begin to say, “But I’m not that sacrificial. I’m not that pure. I don’t have that kind of motivation so many times. I want to care like that, but it just isn’t in me.”

You are so right! It isn’t in us to love like this. That’s why Galatians 5 tells us that the first fruit of the Spirit is what? That’s right! Love! It is love that gives impact to your work.

So what about it Christian teacher? Are you tired of preparing your lesson and getting nowhere? Let me ask you this question: Do you really love those kids? Do you? What about you Choir member? Are you tired of singing with an empty heart? Let me ask you this question: Do you really consciously love the God you’re singing those songs for? Do you love the people you’re singing those songs to? What about you, Upward Coach? Are you tired of presenting those devotions to kids who don’t seem to have the slightest interest? Let me ask you this question: Do you really consciously love those kids, or are you just coaching basketball? What about you college professor or doctor or teacher? Are you tired of giving and giving and seeming to have such little impact? Let me ask you: Do you really love those people you minister to?

If you can’t really answer yes, or if you know your love is so weak that you’ve sacrificed effectiveness, I tell you that Christ wants to give your words meaning, your life significance and your work impact. It begins when the Holy Spirit so fills up your heart that the love of Christ pours out.

VISUALIZATION

Every employee deserves to know they are unique and valuable to their boss.

That's the message of Tim Sanders, leadership coach and former Chief Solutions Officer at Yahoo! who urges managers and supervisors to let their subordinates know how much they appreciate them. Sanders advocates leading through loving in his book Love Is the Killer App, and from the platform of multiple leadership conferences. He often tells the story of a young manager named Steve, who was challenged by one of Sanders's radio interviews.

Steve resolved to visit each of his employees, all six of whom he had not seen face to face in over six months even though they worked in the same building and on the same floor. Steve wanted to tell each of them how much he appreciated them, and name one thing they did excellently.

After the visit from Steve, one of his software engineers, Lenny, presented him with an Xbox gaming console. Steve was taken aback, as he knew Lenny had taken pay cuts over the last year. But he was more surprised to learn that the money had come from the sale of a nine-millimeter pistol—a pistol Lenny had bought months earlier with the intention of killing himself. Lenny told him of his mother's death the previous year, and of his ensuing loneliness and depression: I started a routine every night after work: eating a bowl of Ramen, listening to Nirvana, and getting the gun out. It took almost a month to get the courage to put the bullets in the gun. It took another couple of months to get used to the feeling of the barrel of the gun on the top of my teeth. For the last few weeks, I was putting ever so slight pressure on the trigger, and I was getting so close, Steve—so close.

Last week, you freaked me out. You came into my cubicle, put your arm around me, and told me you appreciated me because I turn in all my projects early, and that helps you sleep at night. You also said that I have a great sense of humor over e-mail and that you are glad I came into your life.

That night I went home, ate Ramen, and listened to Nirvana—and when I got the gun out, it scared me silly for the first time. All I could think about was what you said—that you were glad I came into your life.

The next day I went back to the pawnshop and sold the gun. I remembered that you had said you wanted the Xbox more than anything, but with a new baby at home could not afford it. So, for my life, you get this game. Thanks, boss.

"Sometimes people just need people," Sanders writes. "They need encouragement. You have no idea how lonely and sad some people might be. Love them everywhere—not just at home, but at work, or wherever you find them."