Love and the Power Part 2: The Right Place

Intro

1 Corinthians 13 ESV

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. Love is patient and kind; love does not envy or boast; it is not arrogant or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful; it does not rejoice at wrongdoing, but rejoices with the truth. Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. As for prophecies, they will pass away; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will pass away. For we know in part and we prophesy in part, but when the perfect comes, the partial will pass away. 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. 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. So now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.

Big Idea: The motivation behind spiritual gifts is love.

An Oreo without the cream filling is just lacking something.

Tension

We are ever tempted to take things out of turn rather than submitting to God. For Adam and Eve it was the fruit, for us its power, popularity, fortune, sex, and whatever the lusts of a particular age may be.

Christ calls us to die to any sort of pretense which might lead us to make life about ourselves, religion included. But few seem to do this well. Even in the church we often have a “what can I get out of this” mentality. Christ comes with a “how can I lift you up” mentality.

We struggle to think about life and faith like Jesus does, and apart from Him we never truly will. The good news is, we are united with Christ through His death, burial, and resurrection and with the Spirit’s help we can become who Christ has made us to be.

Truth

The Lord has been kind to us, to begin opening up to us fresh light and experiences of His glory. As we move into this space I believe it is His will that we sanctify ourselves, and commit to this pursuit of love in an earnestness as deep as is our desire to experience His empowering with spiritual gifts.

Our place is three fold. We are to love Christ relentlessly. We are to love one another, showing this by using our gifts to serve one another. Lastly, we are to love the world as Christ does, laying aside our own peace and comfort to bring the gospel to those who are far from Christ.

I. Going after love means refusing to make my gifts about me. (1-3)

When Matthew Holiday was here, he preached about how David was out of place and being out of place put him into a situation within which it was easy for him to sin. When he should have been out with his men fighting, he was home and bored. In that place, his mind wandered and his focus was on himself rather than on God or his people he was called to lead.

Matthew reminded us that placement matters. Oftentimes where we are will influence what we do. This applies to the issue of spiritual gifts. As we approach the gifts, desiring them as Christ commands us to, we must remember that His aim for us is that we will approach the gifts from a place of love towards others rather than pride, or self-actualization.

When we loose sight of love, we are out of place. We easily fall into self-centered patterns and from there we may use God's good gifts to cause harm. Even a good tool can be used for harm when the wielder has the wrong intentions. We are commanded to desire the gifts in earnest, but that call to desire is predicated on the pursuit of love.

It is God's love for us which motivates Him to give us spiritual gifts and He gives them for the purpose of revealing His love both to us and to a broken world through us.

Many of the Corinthians had lost track of God's purpose for the gifts. They were making about themselves rather than about others. Paul's far better way isn't the exclusion of the gifts from church life, but rather using the gifts in love.

If we think we are better than the church at Corinth, or above their sin patterns, we are mistaken and in danger of tripping on the same stumbling blocks they did.

1 Corinthians 10:12 ESV

Therefore let anyone who thinks that he stands take heed lest he fall.

We must approach the gifts with a heart of humility, grace, and a greater concern for others than we have for self. This flies in the face of human nature, but is right in line with the character of Christ.

If we are to succeed, we can only do it through Him. And yet if we are in Him, we will not fail.

Philippians 4:13 ESV

I can do all things through him who strengthens me.

II. Going after love means preferring others over myself. (4-7)

The humility of Christ is our greatest example of this.

Philippians 2:3–8 ESV

Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men. And being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross.

Christ was filled with love in all that He did, even when He gave a hard word.

Christ is never a gong of cymbal. He always acts properly towards all, with kindness and love towards even His enemies.

Christ had the greatest of all heavenly powers, and yet refused to use it for himself.

He is the anti-Adam.

Adam was obsessed with how he could manipulate the world for his own glory and that lead him into sin. He took out of turn whereas Christ was perfectly obedient.

The greatest thing we can do will prove pointless apart from the love of Christ.

Winning arguments, political battles, or putting on displays of power.... none of them will matter without the sort of love which puts God and others first.

III. Love is God’s ultimate aim for us. (8-13)

This sort of self-sacrificing, others-oriented, servant-minded love is a part of the character of Christ Himself. Thus it is a part of what we are bring formed into.

1 John 4:15–21 ESV

Whoever confesses that Jesus is the Son of God, God abides in him, and he in God. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love perfected with us, so that we may have confidence for the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world. There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear. For fear has to do with punishment, and whoever fears has not been perfected in love. We love because he first loved us. If anyone says, “I love God,” and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment we have from him: whoever loves God must also love his brother.

A mature Christian will resemble Christ. Maturity in Him is our eternal destiny and so we can be certain that being the sort of loving person Jesus is, is exactly what God wants for us all.

Philippians 1:9–11 ESV

And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God.

The gifts are designed to equip us to be like Jesus, and thus the aim of the gifts is to produce love in us.

We must be clear that the gifts are not an end to themselves, but a means to an end. That end is love as we grow to become like Christ.

Colossians 1:28–29 ESV

Him we proclaim, warning everyone and teaching everyone with all wisdom, that we may present everyone mature in Christ. For this I toil, struggling with all his energy that he powerfully works within me.

This is exactly what Paul was working to use his gifts to accomplish.

Application

Ask the Spirit to reveal any impure motives you may have for pursuing spiritual gifts. As He reveals those, repent and ask the Lord to help you to walk in love.

Make it a habit to consider the feelings, emotions, life circumstances, and etc of anyone you feel lead to minister to before you say a word to them.

We must be careful to resist giving a word, prayer, or anything with bitterness, anger, or pride in our hearts. Better to be silent than a gong.

Don’t hold back.

If God has given you a gift which is meant to be a blessing to others, it is unloving to keep it to yourself.