Sermon Tone Analysis

Announcements

Don’t forget that we have Bible Study & Prayer this Wednesday at 7pm.

We’re in Psalm 26 and we’d love to have you join us as we study God’s Word and pray together.

Please be aware of the following dates:

June 18th, 2022—we’re going to try and canvas the Chester Hill neighborhood again.

Every single time that we’ve tried, we’ve had some difficulty with weather.

The first time was far too cold to go out, this past time, it rained.

So, hopefully, we’ll be able to actually get into the neighborhood and meet people this time around.

See Natalie for more details.

June 26th, 2022—we’ll have our first of two church cookouts after the Sunday AM service.

The service itself will be here in the auditorium, but the cookout will be across the street right after church.

We’ll have canopies for everyone to sit under, but you’ll need to bring lawn chairs with you.

It’s a good opportunity to invite friends and family to visit the church and get to know us in a more casual environment.

July 3rd, 2022—Quarterly Business Meeting As of today, we don’t have anything to vote on during that meeting, it’s really just an update.

Let me remind you to continuing worshiping the LORD through your giving.

To help you with your giving, we have three ways for you to do so: (1) in-person giving can be done through the offering box at the front of the room—checks should be written to Grace & Peace, if you’d like a receipt for your cash gifts, please place it in an envelope with your name on it.

Debit, Credit, and ACH transfers can be done either by (2) texting 84321 with your $[amount] and following the text prompts or by (3) visiting us online at www.gapb.church

and selecting Giving in the menu bar.

Everything you give goes to the building up of our local church and the spread of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Prayer of Repentance and Adoration

Call to Worship (Ps 51:13-19)

Our Call to Worship this morning is Psalm 51:13-19.

This is the end of David’s psalm of repentance after he sinned with Bathsheba.

He has asked God to have mercy on him and to cleanse him.

He’s asked God to purge him and wash him.

In this morning’s section, he then turns to his desire to praise God after God forgives him and cleanses him.

Please stand and read with me Psalm 51:13-19—I’ll read the odd-numbered verses; please join me in reading the even-numbered verses.

Congregational Singing

How Deep the Father’s Love for Us (80)

My Savior’s Love (105)

Praise Him! Praise Him! (94)

Scripture Reading (1 Pet 4:1-11)

Our Scripture Reading this morning is 1 Peter 4:1-11.

We actually read this passage during our first week in our new series on spiritual gifts.

However, I think it’s important enough of a passage for us to read it again.

In 1 Peter 4, Peter exhorts the believers in the diaspora (those separated because of persecution) to live as God wills them.

They are to reject sin and live in the spirit.

He then calls them to love one another, show hospitality, and use their spiritual gifts.

Deane can you read 1 Peter 4:1-11 for us?

Sermon (1 Cor 13)

Introduction

If you have your Bible, please turn it to 1 Corinthians 13.

We’ve been working over the past few weeks through an eight-week series concerning spiritual gifts—what they are, where they’re from, and what they do.

And so far, we’ve been working through 1 Corinthians 12, which speaks of spiritual gifts as being from the Spirit given to genuine believers for the building up of the local church.

We focused on the truth that these gifts are given for this very specific purpose during our first week in this series and then during the second week, we focused on how different every believer is—both in personality and in giftedness.

We’re all different and that is a good thing; we all have different personalities and that’s a good thing; we all have different spiritual gifts, and that is a good thing.

We should be different and just along as we aren’t in sin, we should celebrate those differences.

This morning’s message is going to focus on again, on spiritual gifts because Paul continues in that line of thinking, but he almost takes a step back before looking more intently at spiritual gifts in ch.

14.

He’s explained how all these gifts are given by the Holy Spirit and he’s explained how necessary all these different spiritual gifts are and then he takes a step back to make a very specific point in ch. 13.

This point has to do with the fact that even though these gifts are important and are necessary, your spiritual gifts have to be utilized in a specific way.

And even if you don’t have a clue what your spiritual gifts are, there’s something that’s a little more important and it’s the need of love, which is what Paul focuses on through ch.

13—love.

Read with me all of 1 Corinthians 13.

As we study this passage, we’re going to break it into three parts: (1) The Superiority of Love (1-3), (2) A Description of Love (4-7), and (3) The Permanence of Love (8-13).

You’ll notice as we work through these sections that the first and last sections directly compares and contrasts love to spiritual gifts, whereas the second section focuses more on what love actually is.

What 1 Corinthians 13 does is it teaches us what genuine love for one another is and then it teaches us that genuine love for one another is more important than spiritual giftedness in that, even if we were the most spiritually gifted person, if we didn’t love each other, we would be completely missing the point.

Spiritual gifts are important and we ought to utilize them according to Paul in 1 Corinthians 12, but we can’t focus so much on spiritual gifts that we neglect the basic command to love one another.

Prayer for Illumination

The Superiority of Love (1-3)

Before we can dig into our current text, we have to remind ourselves of one verse in ch.

12. 1 Corinthians 12:31 says, “But earnestly desire the greater gifts.

And yet, I am going to show you a far better way.”

This verse in ch. 12, provides the transition between chs. 12 and 13, which shows us that there’s an integral link between the two ideas at hand.

Every believer has a spiritual gift given by God through the Holy Spirit to use within the local body for mutual upbuilding.

Within the local body, we all have different gifts and we all have different personalities and there is strength within our differences.

But regardless of the differences in gifts and regardless of the fact that there are gifts, what v. 31 says is that there’s something a little more important that needs to be considered—regardless of what your gifts are and how you’re using them, your love for one another is more important.

Your love for one another supersedes all spiritual gifts and the reasoning for this is simple:

If you use your spiritual gifts, you are to use them in love.

If you don’t use your spiritual gifts, you are to still love those around you.

Even if you don’t even know your spiritual gifts, you still need to love those around you.

The still better way that Paul is speaking of is the necessity to love one another regardless of how you serve within the body of Jesus Christ; you are to love one another regardless of your personality; you need to love one another regardless of how you feel.

It’s this context that Paul then writes something that might seem hyperbolic, but really isn’t.

In vv.

1-3 of ch. 13 he says, “If I speak in the tongues of men and of angels, but have not love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.

If I give away all I have, and if I deliver up my body to be burned, but have not love, I gain nothing.”

Paul goes through some of the gifts that he just mentioned and he happens to pick the ones that people tend to want to have the most.

He mentions speaking in tongues, prophetic powers, faith, and even giving and he calls out these gifts out by name.

Before saying that you can have these gifts and you can have an overabundance of these gifts, to the extent that you could talk to angels, understand all the mysteries, have all knowledge, have faith to move mountains, and give until you’ve genuinely sacrificed, but if you don’t have love, it’s all worthless.

He calls someone who can speak in tongues, but doesn’t have love a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.

He calls someone who can prophesy, understand mysteries, and has knowledge and faith nothing without love.

He states that someone who sacrifices all, even to the extent of giving his life, is nothing if he doesn’t have love.

Again, it sounds like hyperbole, but the reality is that he isn’t being hyperbolic at all.

You can be the most gifted, most talented, most well-spoken, eloquent, faithful, and educated person in the world, but without love, you have nothing.

And it’s really no wonder that Paul can say this because Jesus himself says that the greatest commands are to love.

When the Pharisees attempt to trick Him, they pose the question, “which is the great commandment in the Law? and Jesus responds with Matthew 22:37-40 “37 And He said to him, “ ‘You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all your soul, and with all your mind.’

38 This is the great and foremost commandment.

39 The second is like it, ‘You shall love your neighbor as yourself.’

40 Upon these two commandments hang the whole Law and the Prophets.””

If loving God and loving others are the two greatest commands, which they are according to Jesus, then it’s really no wonder that Paul would then state that without love, you’re a noisy gong or clanging cymbal (v.

1); and without love, you are nothing (v.

2); and without love, you gain nothing (v.

3).

There is a superiority of love, which is what Paul emphasizes in 1 Corinthians 13 and that love ought to supersede everything else.

It is love that ought to motivate you to serve and it is your love that ought to compel you to worship and it is your love that ought to cause you to utilize your spiritual gifts within the local body of believers known as the church.

Because without that love for one another and without that love for God, you have nothing.

It’s worth noting that this is the αγαπη sort of love that depicts God’s love for us and the love that He expects us to have for one another and for Him.

While many of the descriptions that He’s about to give also apply to the other forms of love life φιλεω or ερος, the focus here is on the type of love that God commands us to have for one another and for Him.

Of course, the question then becomes, what exactly does this sort of love look like?

If it is our love that ought to motivate, compel, and cause us to serve, worship, and use our spiritual gifts, what does genuine love look like?

Is it like the love stories that Disney shows or is it like our culture’s idea of love that has resulted in the hook-up mindset of the world?