Sermon Tone Analysis

*Enniscorthy Christian Fellowship – 31st December 2006* 1 Corinthians 13*

St. Michael’s had always been a very wealthy church.

Its 300 members usually gave an annual offering of over a million dollars.

Over the years, however, the neighbourhood around the church began to deteriorate.

The church members moved out to the suburbs,  Eventually the members of the church avoided that part of town except on Sundays.

One Sunday, shortly after a young priest had joined the church staff, the church members were gathered after the morning service for coffee and pastries.

In the spring months they loved to gather in the beautiful flower garden outside the church.

As the elegantly dressed worshipers sipped coffee and chatted in the garden, a homeless man shuffled in off the street.

He entered through the garden gate without looking at anyone.

But all eyes were on him.

He quietly walked over to the table where a spread of expensive pastries were displayed on silver trays.

He picked up one of the pastries and bit into it, keeping his eyes closed.

Then he reached for a second pastry and placed it into his coat pocket.

Moving slowly and trying not to be noticed, he placed another into the same pocket.

The garden buzzed with whispers.

Finally one of the women walked over to the new priest and said, “Well, do something!”

Still feeling a little awkward in his new position, the young priest handed his coffee cup to the woman, walked over to the table, and stood next to the homeless man.

He reached under the table, where the empty pastry boxes had been stored.

Then he picked up one of the silver trays loaded with pastries and emptied them into a box.

He did the same with a second tray of expensive goodies.

Then he closed the lids on the boxes and held them out to the homeless man.

“We’re here every Sunday,” the priest said.

The man smiled, cradled the boxes in his arms, and shuffled quietly out of the garden and down the street.

The priest returned to his coffee cup, smiled at the woman holding it, and said, “That’s what you meant when you said, ‘Do something,’ wasn’t it?”

It may not have been what that woman meant, but it’s close to what God would want.

At the end of 1 Corinthians 12, Paul writes: “And now I will show you the most excellent way” v31.

This is “The Way of Love.”

Paul had been teaching the church in Corinth about sorting out important issues in their church life.

Proper behaviour in their worship, the proper use of spiritual gifts, about recognizing and valuing every different role in the fellowship.

These were important issues for the church.

But there was something even more important.

This last Sunday of 2006 we again declare that we want our church to be biblically based.

We want to get these issues that we’ve been looking at over the past couple of months, right.

We want to worship God in a way that honours him.

Recognise and use our gifts to encourage each other.

Serve God as he has called us.

But even if we got all these things ‘right’ in 2007 and failed to follow this part of Paul’s teaching, everything else would be pointless!

This section of 1 Corinthians is crucial for our church as we step into a new year.

Let’s read 1 Corinthians 13:1-13

 

! *A.   **The Priority of Love v1-3*

Someone has said, “In every religious controversy it is love that leaves first.”

It was happening in this church.

There were arguments over money, marriage, food and clothes, divisions over favourite Christian leaders and favourite spiritual gifts.

Paul warns them that if love leaves their fellowship, they’ll have nothing left!   Paul stressed the priority of love in a 3-fold way:

 

!! *1)                  **Without LOVE what we say is offensive*

The church in Corinth were impressed with eloquence and oratory.

Those with silky smooth public speaking were up on a pedestal in their fellowship.

One of their favourite gifts seems to have been the gift of tongues.

But Paul says, that even if he spoke eloquently in another human or heavenly language, and had not love in his heart – he would be like “a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal” (v1).

As worshipers entered a pagan temple, they would strike a large cymbal that was hanging at the entrance.

It was an empty pagan ritual.

That is what speaking without love is like.

Like a kid with a set of cymbals it would be loud and attention grabbing, but in the end empty, of no value, even offensive and annoying.

Without love, what we say is offensive!

We could praise God in beautiful songs, pray eloquently, preach captivating sermons, but if we fail to have love in our hearts, then all we are doing is making an empty, meaningless noise that grabs people’s attention but in the end, will just annoy and offend.

Jesus said in Mark 7:6: “These people honour me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.”

The evidence that we are filled with the Holy Spirit is not how well we pray or speak, but how much we are growing in love for God and for people!

 

!! *2)                  **Without LOVE what we know is useless*

We are also impressed by knowledge – by people with degrees and letters after their name, or winners of quiz shows.

Even in churches, we’re impressed with those who have amazing knowledge of the Bible.

And of course knowing God’s Word is important.

Truth is crucial!

But Paul says, without love, it’s useless.

v2: “If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge...but have not love, I am nothing.”*

*If we don’t know love, what we know is useless.

* *

“Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up”* *1 Corinthians 8v1.

Think of the Pharisees.

They knew the Scriptures, but they didn’t have love.

Luke 11v42: “Woe to you Pharisees, because you give God a tenth of your mint, rue and all other kinds of garden herbs, but you neglect justice and the love of God.”

They could debate with Jesus about the teaching of the Law, keeping the Sabbath, fasting, but they missed God’s love.

Jonathan Swift, the author of /Gulliver’s Travels,/ said, “We have just enough religion to make us hate, but not enough to make us love one another.”

We can fall into that trap.

We debate and argue over what the Bible says.

We fall out with each other, criticise and ridicule each other, talk behind people’s backs.

We divide and compete.

We claim to have knowledge, but where is the love?  1 John 4:8: “Whoever does not love does not know God, because God is love.”

And as we argue and compete with each other, a lost world dies without hope, without love, without God!

 

!! *3)                  **Without LOVE what we do is worthless*

Thirdly, Paul states that without love, what we do is worthless.

We could have faith that can move mountains.

We could give all our money away to charity.

We could even sacrifice our lives for the cause of Christ.

But if this isn’t motivated by love, then it’s worthless.

Self-sacrifice can be motivated by false motives: selfishness, attention seeking, pride.

We could put a €1000 in the offering box, but if it is not the expression of our love for God and others, then it’s worthless.

We could do crèche for a solid year, but if its not an act of love for God, for the kids, and for each other then it’s worthless.

God wants everything we do to be motivated and directed by love: Galatians 5:6: “The only thing that counts is faith expressing itself through love”

 

!! *4)                  **Not an Optional Extra*

Paul could not emphasise it any stronger.

A lack of love doesn’t just reduce the value of what we say, know, or do.

It removes it completely.

The Message paraphrase says*: *“So, no matter what I say, what I believe, and what I do, I’m bankrupt without love.”*

*1 Cor13:3b  Love isn’t an optional extra.

It’s not a spiritual gift that some have and some don’t.

It is the heart of the Christian life!

The first fruit of the presence of God! 

 

!

*B.    **The Problem of Love*

So, if love is so important, why do we struggle so much with it?

Someone has said:  “It is no chore for me to love the whole world.

My only real problem is my neighbour next door.”