Love the most important gift

Love

Love is a many splendored thing

Love lifts us up where we belong.

All you need is love!

Love is just a game.

You’d think that people would have had enough of silly love songs.

I look around me and I see, it isn’t so.

Some people want to fill the world with silly love songs.

Well what’s wrong with that? I’d like to know.

Love lifts us up where we belong

Where eagles fly, on a mountain high.

Love is everywhere.

The idea of love is hardly a foreign concept to anyone. It’s not a surprise that there are countless songs that talk about love. We intuitively know we need love. Even scientist have shown that we need love. There are a number of health issues that are connected with a lack of love. In infants - we even get something they call ‘failure to thrive’ - which as I understand it, a infant will fail to go through the necessary development if they don’t receive the love they need, and it can kill them.

We know we need love.

But, for some reason, humanity has a way of making a massive mess of it.

I think part of the problem is that we don’t even really know what we’re talking about.

Even in the words I opened with - which in case you missed it, were all taken directly from songs written over the last few generations - love remains this nebulous idea. We know it’s grand. We know it can make a real difference. But what is it?

Part of the problem is that when we think of love, our mind will often first go to the romantic love. And certainly, the concept of love does include the romantic side as well.

But we can use love in a much broader sense.

I love my wife, and I love my children.

I love each of you here today.

I love my dog.

You know what, I even love chocolate.

Each of those statements are true, but the love looks quite different for each of them.

The way of love my wife is very different to the way I love my children, which is again very different from the way I love you, which again is different to the way I love my dog, and again, very different to the way I love chocolate.

Now, I’ll leave aside my love of chocolate, because when we talk about this sort of love, I’m actually really talking about my tastes and my desires, but even if I just focus on the love of other people, we still have a very wide range of understanding love.

But I want to suggest something - even though the way we express love will vary massively depending on the nature of our relationship, however, there are some common threads between each of them. The problem is, we get so caught up in the particular expression of our love, that we forget what the basis of it is.

Spiritual gifts link

Now this morning, we come to what is perhaps the Bibles most famous passage of the topic of love. If you’ve been to more than a few Christian weddings, then I suspect there’s a good chance you’ve heard this passage feature there. It is of course 1 Corinthians 13.

But here’s the thing. If you follow the overall flow of the Paul’s logic, the one who wrote this letter, then you’ll see that his focus is not the romantic love of a couple getting married, but rather the love that emanates from the Body of Christ.

Paul is in the middle of his advice to the Corinthian church about how they should be approaching their spiritual gifts, and right in the middle of this discussion he feels the need to provide some extended reflections on love.

He does this because he recognises that if you try and have a discussion about spiritual gifts, and you don’t understand love - then you’re going to end up with something very empty indeed.

And so, I think it is important for us as well, as we go on this journey of thinking about our spiritual gifts, to take a bit of time to consider this underlying concept of love.

But as we do, I want to give consideration for the fact that we can know this lesson in theory - but yet we still mess it up - and so I want to explore the reason why we mess up such a fundamental concept so easily.

Gifts without love

Well, let’s start where Paul does at the start of chapter 13 where Paul gives us some bold imagery to make his point.

Paul gives us a picture of a resounding gong and a clanging cymbal.

Now, in the right context, and big gong or a clanging cymbal can actually be a really good effect. But somehow I don’t think this is what Paul has in mind when he brings this picture to mind.

It is often thought likely, that the image Paul has in mind is the horrible noise that was known to come from pagan religious worship. There’s evidence of a particular practice in Corinth where they worshipped Dionysus, the god of nature, and Cybele, the goddess of wild animals, which featured gong and cymbals. It has been reported that the noise that was created from such practice, was quite offensive.

Well, with this picture in mind, Paul is about to explain how the Corinthian church’s favourite spiritual gift has the potential to be just the same.

Without love, the gift of speaking in tongues, even at it’s ideal best, is just noise.

Now, such an idea was meant to shock this church. So for us to gain an understanding of how shocking this is, it’s worth briefly exploring this gift. I’ll only give it relatively brief thoughts because we’ll spend a bit more time on it next week when we get to chapter 14.

So what do we mean by speaking in tongues? Well, I’m going to describe it as one potential manifestation of the Holy Spirit in our lives. As a believer draws close to the Spirit, they then speak words unknown to that individual… words that flow off the tongue as inspired by the Spirit. It’s an experience that is usually connected with prayer.

A big question is: what words are they speaking? Well, in the book of Acts, we see this phenomenon as the Spirit is poured out on the day of Pentecost - something we read about in Acts 2. On this occasion, it is very clear that the words they speak are words that are understood by speakers of other languages.

However, interestingly, when you look at today’s passage, it actually says: “if I speak in the tongues of men or of angels...”

So this seems to be leaving the possibility open that there is also an angelic tongue that people could possibly speak in.

Now while I’m not going to discount the possibility that the Holy Spirit can lead people to speaking other earthly tongues today - particularly in missionary settings, however, when people experience this phenomenon today, it’s usually not another earthly language. So are they speaking an angelic tongue? A cynical view would be to conclude they are just speaking gibberish in a heightened emotional state. Is this cynical view fair? Well, on occasion, probably, but I do think that for many, this is a genuine experience of the Holy Spirit. Is it an angelic tongue? Well, I don’t know. But I do think people can speak in ways unknown to man as a result of the spirit.

Next week we’ll look at this more specifically in the context of a church service.

But for here, Paul is picturing it in its ideal form. When it is actually another language, or even a genuine angelic tongue. In this way, we’re talking about something truly spectacular.

Which makes it all the more shocking when Paul compares it to such an annoying noise.

But just in case you think that perhaps Paul is just criticising the speaking of tongues here - he also has a go at some of the other gifts that you might argue are really important. And for each one, he pictures them at their best.

If you have the gift of prophecy, but not only do you have the occasion insightful observation about God in the world - but Paul’s putting it at its best - when you can fathom all mysteries.

Or take the gift of faith - but again we’re picturing it at its best - where you can move mountain.

All of these gifts at their best, without love, mean absolutely nothing.

Paul is exaggerating the point to really make this clear.

Do not ever look at any gift of the spirit as the end product. God will give them to you for a purpose, but there is a deeper thing we should be seeking - love. Without love, we’re missing the point. We may be using the tools of God, but we’re not speaking his language.

The nature of love

Okay, so we might understand this much, but it’s quite likely that we’ll still run into the same problem the love song writers come to.

You see, they’ll talk about love as this thing that lifts us up, that changes the world, but yet despite the fact we think in such terms, inevitably, things go pear shaped.

Why is that?

Well, let’s first turn to how Paul describes love.

He starts with two positive attributes. Love is patient and kind.

This is followed by a series of negative aspects which love is not.

It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It does not dishonour others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.

The one in that list that really stands out to me is the one about being self-seeking.

When we are self-seeking, it will naturally follow that we will be filled with envy, that we will boast and be proud. When we are self-seeking, it won’t take long before we feel the need to dishonour others and to be easily angered.

And I want to suggest that perhaps this is the one where things so easily fall over - and the one where our whole discussion on gifts falls over.

You see, when we’re self-seeking we can put on this amazing pretense of love, but the actual reality is that it’s more about ourselves.

Now, as I’ve said that this chapter is written in the context of a church setting, let’s imagine a fairly typical sort of scenario that you might find in any church.

Now, most people you meet in a church are going to readily agree that love is important. If they don’t, then we’ve got real problems.

But each person is then going to make their own assessment about how that love is going to best expressed.

If you’ve ever read the five love languages, then that gives five broad areas, namely, gifts, physical touch, acts of service, words of affirmation and quality time. The idea is that people will express their love in different ways. But even beyond this, you have those who express a tough love with discipline, or perhaps a merciful love.

The fact that we have different ways of expressing love should not be a problem because its part of the diversity that God has given us.

But yet in this scenario where you have many people in a church, each trying to express love in their own way, it’s not hard to see how each will look at the other and think they aren’t being loving. Now our very inclination is always to look at this from a self-centered point of view. And so it’s not long before we our view of others turns to a very uncharitable perspective. We start to dishonour other. We get easily angered.

And yet we started with everyone trying to show love. We soon have conflict in the church, and everyone feels justified in their own position because their position is the most loving.

But yet here is the problem - that love we were trying to show… as well intentioned as it was, lacked the qualities that were so necessary. While we might not see it as self-seeking, because after all we’ll argue that it was directed at others, but it was self-seeking in the sense that you thought your way was the only way.

And this is why love needs to be patient. It needs to take the time and see what is really going on.

And rather than delighting in evil, when you see the truth, to rejoice in it - even if it means that your poor assumptions are exposed.

In reality, we usually have a narrow view of love. And this narrow view blinds us from so much beauty that is happening around us. But love always protects, it always trusts, always hopes and always perseveres.

The reason that so many relationships fail is because we have such a poor understanding of what love really is.

I want to suggest that the real way that we are going to correct this poor understanding in our own lives is in patience. And in our patience, taking the time to be self-reflecting. Take the time to listen to the other persons perspective. Take the time to think how the other person has come to their position.

It is true love that will allow the space for this to happen.

Love is eternal

Now, there is another aspect of love that is relevant for this discussion, and it is where Paul takes us from verse 8 to the end of the chapter. We can sum this aspect up by saying: Love is eternal.

Paul starts verse 8 with the words: “Love never fails”.

What does he mean by this? Well lets think about it...

You see, God gives us lots of gifts. But these gifts are for this present age, because God knows that we need help to get through this time.

But… this current age we are living in is not everything. This age will come to an end at some point in the future. Exactly when that is, well, we have no idea. It could be soon. But it also could be well beyond our life time.

But a time will come when Jesus returns. Jesus will usher in a new age where the old order of things will have passed, and a new order will be here. The new order will be a new creation where evil has been finally dealt with. And for this reason we will have an unimpeded relationship with God.

And so, many of the gifts that we have been given now will not be necessary. We won’t need the gift of tongues, because we’ll already be able to understand everything. Knowledge and prophecy… well, when you see God face to face, we already know full so these gifts become redundant.

But while all of these become redundant in the new age, the one thing that doesn’t is love.

This is the one that will carry on.

And this is just one more reason why when we talk about Spiritual gifts, are greater emphasis must be on love, not on the gifts themselves.

Application

We’re in the middle of a series now on Spiritual gifts. It’s so easy to get all excited about the discussions that come out of this because it is the Holy Spirit himself who is doing a work in our life. Yet it is also very possible to completely miss the point. To see the gift itself as the main thing. But the gift is a means to something greater. To see God’s name being glorified. And at the heart of this must be love - because God is love.

And so, a discussion on gifts must involve a discussion on love.

Conclusion

Love really is a curious thing isn’t it. We know its important. We have countless songs saying as much. And yet we misunderstand it so terribly.

We misunderstand that it is the thing that gives our gifts meaning.

We misunderstand it because we struggle to take ourselves out of the picture. We struggle to have the patience to look at things from another perspective, and so love becomes about being self-seeking.

And we misunderstand the eternal nature.

Once we begin to grasp a better understand of what love really is, to be honest, most other things will really just fall into place.

Almost all the lessons we teach - if you love as God loves, then you’re never going to go too far. But please, take the time to really understand love as God first loved us.

Let me pray...