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Do we need this for anything?
Beloved congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ, you've probably
heard or asked that question before. Do we need this for anything? It usually comes up when you
are in the garage or the shed or some other place on the property
needs to get cleaned up. Reorganize. You come across things
and there are some things you know that you need, you must
have, things that you know are indispensable. You keep those
things for sure. But there are other things that
you look at and you think, We don't need this. And so we throw
it away, or perhaps we store it out of the way somewhere,
maybe in the attic or in the basement. We can do that with
all kinds of things, but we can also do that with love, can't
we? We can live and act as if love
is not all that important. Instead of showing humble and
sincere regard for others and a self-sacrificing care and concern
for their real needs and well-being, we can serve and live for ourselves. We can be more concerned about
our own reputation, our own rights, our own opinions, our own feelings,
our own comforts. That can happen. It can happen
anywhere. In our marriages, in our families,
in our homes, in our workplaces, in our schools, on social media,
and yes, also in our church. We might say with our mouths
that love is important and even necessary, but in practice we
can live and act as if it's dispensable. Well, that was the problem the
church in Corinth was struggling with. Already in 1 Corinthians
1, we learn that there were divisions in the church. They were fighting
over who was the best leader, the one everyone should follow.
Some said they followed Apollos. Others said they followed Peter. And then still others said, well,
we follow Paul. And then there were some others
that played the real trump card. Well, we follow Christ. So there were the faithful ones. In the meantime, according to
1 Corinthians 5 and 6, they were not only shrugging their shoulders
at a grievous sin in the church, but they were also cheating and
doing wrong to each other themselves. They were avenging each other.
And not only that, they were despising and judging each other
in indifferent manners, like eating food offered to idols.
Even the Lord's Supper was a battle scene. People were fighting to
be first. Some were going hungry and others
were getting drunk. The church was a mess. And then
there were some who claimed to be more important than others
because they could speak in tongues or prophesy. That's what Paul
addresses in 1 Corinthians 12, and he reminds them there, listen,
you are bound together. You are bound together as the
body of Christ by grace, by the Spirit, and you need to use your
gifts, your various gifts, not to lord it over each other, but
to humbly serve each other in love. And yet the Corinthian church
was living and acting as if love was unimportant, not necessary,
as if it was dispensable. That's the problem our text this
morning, 1 Corinthians 13, verses one through three, addresses.
It emphasizes, you see, that love is indispensable. 1 Corinthians
13 is sometimes known as the love chapter, and for good reason.
Because that's what it's all about. It's about charity or
love. But the kind of love it's talking
about is not a warm, fuzzy feeling. The Greek word is agape. And in the Bible, in this context,
it refers here to the humble, sincere regard for others and
a self-sacrificing care and concern for their real needs and well-being
that can include what we sometimes call tough love. And it's important to understand
that because love is so distorted and twisted in our culture today.
It's often reduced to just the idea of being nice and affirming,
to just being tolerant and just being a doormat, just doing whatever
people want. But that's not what 1 Corinthians
13 is talking about. It's talking about the humble,
I'll say it again, the humble, sincere regard for others and
a self-sacrificing care and concern for their real needs and well-being. And verses 1 through 3 make clear
that that love is indispensable. It's indispensable. Three times
we read, he talks about, if I have something, but if I do not have
love, or if I do something, but if I do not have love, I am nothing. It is nothing. In other words,
we can't do without love. That's the message of the first
three verses of this chapter, and that really should motivate
us to follow after and to pursue, to run after love, as Paul calls
for in 1 Corinthians 14, verse 1. Lord willing, this will be
the first of four sermons based on that call in 14 verse 1, the
call to follow after love. You could title these sermons,
you could put the title over these four sermons, Pursuing
Love. The other three sermons will
deal with the picture of love, and then the excellency of love,
and then finally the source of love. But this morning we'll
consider especially the indispensability or the absolute necessity of
love. And as we do this, God willing,
my prayer to God as well as my plea to you is this, that each
one of us would ruthlessly apply what we learned from God's Word
in this series. First of all, to our own selves. That each one of us would examine,
first of all, our own selves thoroughly and honestly, and
I'm talking to myself, and humbly in this matter, not others as
we can be so prone to do. Let us remember, this is my plea,
let us remember Christ's warning about beholding and trying to
pull the speck out of our brother's eye while there's a beam in our
own. And so with that in mind, let's give our attention now
to our text, with our theme being the indispensability of love. We'll look at it in three ways.
First of all, powerfully demonstrated. Secondly, personally confessed.
And thirdly, practically applied. Notice with me, first of all,
how powerfully demonstrated the indispensability of love is in
our text. Let's listen again to these three
verses, and I'm just going to use the word love instead of
charity. 1 Corinthians 13 verse 1, though
I speak with the tongues of men and of angels and have not love. Let me read that again because
I want you to catch the emphasis here. Though I speak with the tongues
of men and of angels and have not love, I am become a sounding
brass or a tinkling or clanging cymbal. 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
and have not love, I am nothing. And though I bestow all my goods
to feed the poor, and though I give my body to be burned and
have not love, it profits me nothing. But what is Paul, under
the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, doing here? He's powerfully demonstrating,
isn't he, that love is indispensable. And he does that in two ways.
First of all, in verses one and two, he shows that the greatest
spiritual gifts we can have are worthless without love. In verse
1, he mentions the gift of tongues. The gift of tongues here refers
to the miraculous God-given ability to speak, not gibberish, but
other human languages. The first time it happened in
the New Testament was at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit came down
and He filled the disciples. What happened? It says that they
began to speak with other tongues or with other languages as the
Spirit gave them utterance. It was, of course, a very attention-grabbing
gift. Acts 2 tells us the people who
were visiting Jerusalem from other places for the feast, for
Pentecost, they were amazed. They marveled, saying to one
another, Behold, are not all these which speak Galileans?
And how hear we every man in our own tongues wherein we were
born? We do hear them speak in our
tongues the wonderful works of God. So it was an attention-grabbing
gift. And it's understandable then
that some of the Corinthians thought that this gift was the
best gift to have. Paul says it's worthless without
love. In fact, even the deluxe version
of that gift, speaking with tongues of angels, is worthless. It's even worse than that, actually.
It's terrible. It makes him, he says, like a
sounding brass or a clanging cymbal. It doesn't take too much
to imagine what that sounds like, does it? If you have siblings
or kids. Or you had kids in the home,
you've probably heard something like this at one point or another.
A kid gets into the pots and pans cupboard and he starts pulling
out the lids, or she, and starts hitting them together as hard
as they can. And it goes, bash, bash, clang,
clang, clang. Oh, and you go, oh, that's a
terrible noise. You cover your ears and you yell,
stop! It's just terrible. That's what
Paul says his speaking in tongues is like if he does not have love. It doesn't do anyone any good.
It benefits no one. Now, of course, as far as I know,
none of us claims to have the gift of miraculously speaking
in other languages, even if you think the Spirit still gives
that gift today. But that's beside the point.
The point is that even the gift of speaking in tongues is worthless
without love. And that implies that all our
speaking, as well as our writing, is worthless if we do not have
love. That's true of our speaking and
writing at home. At church, on the computer, on
our phones, at school, everywhere. It's all worthless without love. Love is a must-have. Do you have it? You see, love is necessary not
just with speaking in tongues, it's necessary with the other
great spiritual gifts too. Paul mentions two more of them
in verse two. He mentions prophecy and faith.
The gift of prophecy was the gift of receiving and revealing
God's truth to others. It meant you could understand
mysteries and mystery of God, and you could understand the
knowledge of God, and Paul certainly had that gift. What's more, according
to 1 Corinthians 14, that gift is really the greatest gift to
have. Paul also mentions faith, the
gift of faith. It's not referring here to saving
faith, although that too is a gift of God. But Paul's speaking here
not of faith to be saved, but rather miracle-working faith,
the faith that God will do miracles in impossible situations. Prophecy
and faith, these two great gifts. But Paul says, even they are
worthless without love. Paul even says, though I have
both these gifts in their fullest measure, though I have the gift
of prophecy and understand not just some, but all mysteries
and all knowledge, and though I have not just some, but all
faith, so that I could remove mountains and have not love,
I am nothing. What a powerful demonstration
of how indispensable love is. Don't you see it? With me. It doesn't matter, Paul is saying,
God is saying, it doesn't matter what gifts we have or how great
and impressive they are. If we don't have love, it's not
just less valuable. It's totally worthless. We're nothing. Spiritual gifts can be good,
of course, but the greatness of a person, Paul is saying,
has nothing to do with spiritual gifts. It has everything to do
with love, with a humble, sincere regard for others and a self-sacrificing
care and concern for their real needs and well-being. Isn't that
important to remember? It can be so easy for us, can't
it, to put a premium on our gifts, on our talents, on our abilities?
But what about love? The greatest spiritual gifts
we have, we can have, are completely worthless without love. Or maybe you're thinking, OK,
but surely my works, my good deeds count for something? But
look at verse 3, not just the greatest spiritual gifts we have,
but even the greatest spiritual works we can do are worthless
without love. That's what Paul says, and though
I bestow all my goods to feed the poor, and though I give my
body to be burned and have not love, it profits me nothing. That's quite something, isn't
it? What's Paul saying? He's saying,
I can give my money and my possessions away to the poor all my life
long. But if I don't have love, it's
worth nothing. I can tithe and I can put my
money in the offering bag faithfully every week. I can even give more
and far above 10%. I can give everything to the
needy and to the church and to Christian organizations. But
if I don't have love, It's worthless. Not even great acts of self-sacrifice
count. I can give my life to full-time
ministry. I can serve in the church. I
can give my time to preparing sermons, to preparing Sunday
school lessons and catechism lessons. I can go visiting. I
can help with camps. I can go on mission trips. I
can even become a missionary. I can serve on various Christian
boards and committees. I can do it all. I can even die
as a martyr. But if I do not have love for
others, it's a complete waste. It's useless. Not just some of it, but all
of it. It profits me nothing. It's pretty shocking, isn't it? It's also humbling. You might
think, wait a minute, wait a minute. How can anyone do those things
without love? It seems impossible, doesn't
it? But it's not. That's how sinful and selfish
we are by nature. We shouldn't just assume that
the good things we do, we automatically do out of love for others. The
reality is that by nature we're so sinful and so selfish of ourselves,
it's possible to give of our things and even our lives for
selfish purposes, to feel good about ourselves and to look good
to others. Even Christians can struggle
with this. Otherwise, why would the Spirit have inspired Paul
to write this verse? Why would he have needed to tell
us that even the greatest spiritual works we do are worthless without
love? Love is indispensable for us. That's what the Holy Spirit through
Paul is powerfully demonstrating in our text. We are nothing without
love, without humble, sincere regard for others and self-sacrificing
care and concern for their real needs and well-being. Nothing. The question is then,
have we learned that? Have I? Have you? Does that show? Does it show
in our marriage relationship? Does it show in our relationships
with our children? Or with our parents? Or with
our siblings? Does it show in our text messages? Does it show in our conversations
and other interactions with each other? Does it show at school
with your classmates? Doesn't the Spirit's powerful
demonstration of love's absolute necessity call for and even demand
that? How does that happen? What do
we need so that we not only start to love but also grow in love? Well, that brings us to the second
thing we see in our text. Love's indispensability is not
only powerfully demonstrated, it is also personally confessed. Did you notice that? Paul doesn't
speak in terms of the Corinthians. He doesn't say, if you don't
have love, you are nothing. He also doesn't speak in general
terms. He doesn't say if a person in general doesn't have love,
he is nothing or she is nothing. No, he speaks in personal terms. He says, though I have the greatest
spiritual gifts and do the greatest spiritual works possible, if
I don't have love, I am become a sounding brass and a clanging
cymbal. I am nothing. It profits me nothing. You see, he's saying these things
about himself and he's not simply being tactful. He really means
it. The indispensability of love
is personally confessed. There's a couple things we should
note about that. For one thing, notice the thorough
nature of this confession. Paul doesn't make any exceptions
for himself. He could have. He had so much
he could have boasted about, so much he could have claimed
was far more important than love. He refers to some of these things
throughout his letters to the Corinthians, especially in 2
Corinthians 11 and into chapter 12. He had incomparable spiritual
gifts. He had personally seen Jesus
and been made an apostle and a preacher of the gospel. He
had done the signs of an apostle among the Corinthians. He had
done wonders and miracles among them. He had received and proclaimed
the mysteries and the knowledge of God. He had had visions and
revelations of the Lord. He had been raised up to the
third heaven. and his spiritual works were
just as great, if not greater. He had never charged the Corinthians
anything for all the preaching he did among them. He had labored
more abundantly, he says, than any other apostle or preacher.
What's more, he had suffered incomparably for his ministry. He had been whipped and beaten
above measure. From the Jews he had been five
times whipped, 40 minus one. Three times he was beaten with
rods. He had been imprisoned many times.
Once he was stoned. He had almost died many times.
Three times he had suffered shipwreck. He had even been, he says, in
the sea for a night and a day. He had made many journeys and
been in countless dangers. He talks about perils of waters,
and perils of robbers, and perils of his own countrymen, the Jews,
and perils of the Gentiles, and perils in the city, and perils
in the wilderness, perils in the sea, perils among false brethren. He had been in weariness and
painfulness, in watchings and in sleeplessness often, in hunger
and thirst, In fastings often, in cold and nakedness, no one
was so gifted and worked so hard and made so many sacrifices as
Paul had. And yet, Paul is confessing here
in this text that none of it matters. if I don't have love. He makes no exceptions for himself. But what about us? Do we confess
without exception that nothing matters if we don't have love?
Do I confess that about myself? Do you confess that about yourself
without exception? That nothing, not even all your
gifts, not any of your talents, not any of your skills, not even
any of your service, your sacrifices, your sufferings, none of it matters
if you don't have love. That's what Paul confessed. But
he does more than that. He also makes no qualifications.
He doesn't say that if he doesn't have love, there's a bit of a
problem. He doesn't even say, well, yeah,
okay, it's a pretty big problem. He says, there's nothing. If I don't have love, he says,
as it were, I have nothing, I am nothing. gain nothing. Is that your confession for yourself? Have you come to acknowledge
that if you don't have love, that's more than just a little
problem. It's a devastating problem. It
leaves you with nothing. It completely undoes you. And
it makes all your righteousnesses like filthy rags. Yes, it makes
you even deserving of an eternity in hell. That's a hard confession to make,
isn't it? At least if you understand love
in the sense that Paul means it here, not as a feeling, not
as just being nice and affirming and doing what people want. but
as a humble, sincere regard for others and a self-sacrificing
care and concern for their real needs and well-being. That's
the kind of love Paul is talking about here. And then you see
that love, that love is not something that any of us have by nature.
You know, there's none of us here that can say, well, I've
got it. There's none of us. There should
be no boasting, no pride here. It's impossible for any of us
to have this by nature because we are sinners. No, this love
is not something we have by nature. The Bible says it's a fruit of
the grace of God. It's a fruit of the Spirit. By
nature we live only for ourselves. By nature we're prone even to
hate God and our neighbor. So to confess, to make this confession,
to confess that without love I am nothing, is to confess that I am nothing
by nature. And that's hard. That's humbling. The temptation
so often is to try and soften that. We either change the meaning
of love so we can make it look like we do have love, or we live
as if our outward acts of obedience, like our church attendance, or
our devotions, or our prayers, or our decent behavior can count
in place of it. That's what the Pharisees did. That's what the rich young ruler
did, too. When he asked Jesus what he needed
to do to inherit eternal life, Jesus reminded him of some of
the commandments, and the man claimed he had kept all of them
from his youth. But you know, then Jesus told
him to go and sell all his possessions and give to the poor and to come
and follow him. But the man wouldn't do that.
He turned away, and he went away, the Bible says, sad, because
he had great possessions. Jesus had shown him the one thing
he actually lacked, love. And that without that, he was
nothing, in spite of all of his outward obedience. But the man
didn't want to admit that. It was too costly. It was too
humbling. It was too hard. And so he turned
away. And he went away. Sad. He left. What about you? What about me? The truth is, apart from the
grace of God, none of us would make this confession. None of
us would personally confess the indispensability of love so thoroughly
the way that Paul does here. None of us would say, without
love, I am nothing. Even Paul himself wouldn't have.
He tells us in several passages that he used to think of himself
as quite something because of his outward privileges and accomplishments. Let me just take one passage
and read the list of accomplishments from Philippians 3, verses 5
and 6. Circumcised the eighth day of the stock of Israel, of
the tribe of Benjamin. on Hebrew of the Hebrews, as
touching the law of Pharisee, concerning zeal, persecuting
the church, touching the righteousness which is in the law, blameless,
that is blameless in an outward sense. But he thought he was
blameless. And Paul, he says, I used to
think of those things as game. So how, what changed? How did he come to this confession
in 1 Corinthians 13? How did he and how do we come
to confess that without love we are nothing? That brings us
to the second thing to note about this personal confession, not
just its thorough nature, but its divine origin, its divine
source. You see, what brought Paul to
make this confession was his encounter with the Lord Jesus
Christ, the risen and ascended Lord. Do you remember what happened? He was on the road, traveling
on the road to Damascus, planning to throw the Christians there
into prison. And as he was traveling, suddenly there was a light, a
bright light. And there was a voice saying,
Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou me? And Paul says, who art thou,
Lord? And the Lord said, I am Jesus,
whom thou persecutest. It is hard for thee to kick against
the pricks. Paul met Jesus, and that changed
his life forever. From then on, he realized that
all his privileges and all of his accomplishments that he had
been trusting in were nothing. They were even dung, he says,
that in himself, he was nothing. Because what matters is love,
and that was the one thing he lacked, real love, love for God,
love for Jesus, and love for others. It was God's invasion
of his life that taught him to personally confess, if I do not
have love, I am nothing. That's what he needed. A congregation,
that is what all of us need. We need God. We need God to come. No, we don't need a Damascus
Road experience, but we need God to come and to graciously
intervene in our lives. To come and to show us his blinding
holiness. And to show us our total lovelessness. and then to show us his infinite
love and to grant us repentance and saving faith in Jesus Christ. We need God to come and to dwell
in us. Has he done that for you? Oh, If so, then surely this will
be your personal confession as well as your growing conviction,
won't it? If I do not have love, I am nothing. Is it? Is it your confession? Is it your conviction? How can it be otherwise? And only then you see, when we
come to that personal confession, it's only then that we can really
start to love and to grow in it. How then should we respond to
the message of our text? How should we respond to the
reality that if we do not have love, we are nothing? Well, that
brings us briefly to our third point, the indispensability of
love practically applied. And we'll get more into practical
application next time when we look at the picture of love that
Paul gives in verses four through seven, but just There are a few
applications we can note now just thinking about the absolute
necessity of love. The first is this, how important
it is to examine ourselves, to see whether we are living
in love. The indispensability of love
makes us vital, doesn't it? And again, Again, I remind you,
and I plead with you, we should each be focusing on ourselves
here, not on others. It's easy to say, you know, it's
easy to say, yeah, we need more love, when actually what we mean
is, well, they need more love. It's easy to convince ourselves
that we're more loving than we actually are. We need to examine
ourselves. Do I, do I have Love, are we willing to spend
time thinking about this question? Are we willing to be ruthlessly
honest with ourselves here? Does my life, does your life reflect a humble,
sincere regard for others and a self-sacrificing care and concern
for their real needs and well-being? What about the way you interact
in your marriage? With your spouse? What about
the way you interact with your family? What about the way that you speak
to or about others? What about the things that you
say or the tone that you speak with? If you're in a position
of authority as a husband or a parent or a leader, What about
the way you exercise that authority? If you're under authority, what
about the way that you respond to that authority? Love is indispensable. Let us then make sure that we
examine ourselves and see how well, how well are we really
doing? How well am I really doing? But also secondly, let us repent. Let us repent of any and all
lovelessness. And that's something all of us
will have to do because none of us loves with this kind of
love perfectly. If you want proof, just try replacing
the word, just try reading verses four through seven and replacing
that word charity or that word love with your own name. So when we find less love in
our hearts, in our lives, than we should have, or perhaps we
find no love at all, then let us not just shrug our shoulders,
let us not defend that, let us not excuse it, let us not continue
in it, but let us also not despair. Because there is a Savior! There is a Savior for the loveless!
Jesus Christ, and He's a Savior so full of grace and mercy, whose
love is infinite, whose love passes knowledge. And this Savior,
this Jesus, He gave His life in order not only to cleanse
and to forgive us for all of our lovelessness, for all of
our selfishness, for all of our hatred, but also to fill us with
His love. and enable us to love others
by His Holy Spirit in us. So let's bring our lovelessness
to Him. Let us confess it, grieve over
it, take a shame to ourselves for it, and let us ask for His
forgiveness and for His renewal by His Holy Spirit, because He
promises, He promises that He will receive all who come to
Him. And finally, finally let us all
commit ourselves to pursuing love. That's what the indispensability
of love calls for, doesn't it? It calls us to pursue love. Like Paul pursued the Christians
before he was converted to try and throw them in prison, to
try and get them, to try and grab them. We need to pursue
love to just run after it, to focus on it. How do we do that? What does that look like? Well,
that's for next time when we look at the picture of love.
But in essence, in essence, the way to pursue love is to pursue. Jesus Christ. Because he is the perfect picture
of love, and he is the giver of love. That's what will unite people. So we're pursuing Jesus Christ sincerely. Oh, then let us pursue Him because
love is indispensable. It's an absolute necessity. Without
it, we're nothing. I'm nothing. You're nothing. That's the message of our text. And so as we close, that leaves
each of us with the question, what are we doing? What are we going to do? with this love? Are we going
to throw it away? Are we going to store it in the
basement? Somewhere out of sight, as it were? Are we going to focus
and pursue after our gifts, or our outward religion, or our
opinions? or our rights, or our reputation,
or our feelings, or our comforts, or are we, with the help of God,
going to follow after love? What is your answer? Amen. Let us pray. Behold what manner of love, what manner of love you have,
O Lord. And when we think about that, and we see how little love we
have, Lord, please bless this word
to our hearts. Grant that we would not use it
to judge each other, but rather that we would first
of all examine ourselves. and humble
ourselves. And Lord, that we might together
come to Jesus Christ, confessing our
sins and seeking his help, abiding
in him. That is the only way, oh Lord,
we can learn. to love. Grant us this by your
grace and by your Holy Spirit. Forgive all that was sinful,
even in this hour, in our thoughts or in our words. We ask it in
Jesus' name alone.
The Indispensability of Love
Series Pursuing Love
- Powerfully Demonstrated
- Personally Confessed
- Practically Applied
| Sermon ID | 1013241724473943 |
| Duration | 42:35 |
| Date | |
| Category | Sunday - AM |
| Bible Text | 1 Corinthians 13 |
| Language | English |
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